MedWire News: White children, but not their African-American counterparts, are more likely to develop asthma if they carry particular variants of the ORMDL3 gene, study results confirm.
Asthma is a complex disease that is thought to be caused by a variety of genes that interact with each other and with environmental factors, explain lead researcher Dr Hakon Hakonarson, from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, USA, and team.
They add that a better understanding of the genes involved in the development of asthma may lead to new, tailored treatments based on each patient’s genetic profile.
A previous study of White European children revealed that variants of the ORMDL3 gene, located on chromosome 17, were associated with an increased risk of asthma.
For the current study, Dr Hakonarson and team investigated whether variants of the same gene are also associated with asthma in White-American and African-American children.
The researchers analysed DNA samples from 807 White children with asthma and 2583 White children without the disease, and repeated the analysis in 1456 African-American children with asthma and 1973 without.
They found that the results in the White children replicated those of the European study, with seven variants of the ORMDL3 gene showing a significant association with asthma.
In contrast, no association was found between any of these variants and asthma in the African-American children.
“We replicated the European findings among [White] American children, and showed that the gene plays a role in asthma of any severity level," said Dr Hakonarson.
He concluded: "The biological mechanisms by which genetic variants contribute to asthma are not well understood. However, we will continue our investigations, to shed light on how we might use genetic knowledge to develop more effective treatments for this common disease.
“These treatments will be a form of personalized medicine, better tailored to the genetic makeup of the individual patient."
The research is published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.