Asthma: Genetics

Saffron AG Willis‐Owen, Imperial College, London, UK

Published online: December 2008

DOI: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0005565.pub2

Asthma is an inflammatory disease of the small airways of the lung. It is strongly influenced by genetic factors. Specific genes have been shown to predispose to the disease by a variety of mechanisms. High-throughput approaches towards disease gene identification are now being applied, and have already led to important insights into disease aetiology.

Keywords: asthma; atopy; IgE; allergy; atopic dermatitis

 Further Reading
    Cookson W (1999) The alliance of genes and environment in asthma and allergy. Nature 402: B5–B11.
    Cookson W (2004) The immunogenetics of asthma and eczema: a new focus on the epithelium. Nature Reviews Immunology 4(12): 978–988.
    Corry DB and Kheradmand F (1999) Induction and regulation of the IgE response. Nature 402: B18–B23.
    Holt PG, Macaubas C, Stumbles PA and Sly PD (1999) The role of allergy in the development of asthma. Nature 402: B12–B17.
    Kay AB (2001) Allergy and allergic diseases. First of two parts. New England Journal of Medicine 344: 30–37.
    Kay AB (2001) Allergy and allergic diseases. Second of two parts. New England Journal of Medicine 344: 109–113.
    Moffatt MF, Kabesch M, Liang L et al. (2007) Genetic variants regulating ORMDL3 expression contribute to the risk of childhood asthma. Nature 448: 470–473.
    von Mutius E, Fritzsch C, Weiland SK, Roll G and Magnussen H (1992) Prevalence of asthma and allergic disorders among children in united Germany: a descriptive comparison. British Medical Journal 305: 1395–1399.
    Ober C and Hoffjan S (2006) Asthma genetics 2006: the long and winding road to gene discovery. Genes and Immunity 7: 95–100.
    Ober C and Moffatt MF (2000) Contributing factors to the pathobiology. The genetics of asthma. Clinics in Chest Medicine 21: 245–261.
    Turner H and Kinet JP (1999) Signalling through the high-affinity IgE receptor Fc epsilonRI. Nature 402: B24–B30.
    Vercelli D (2008) Discovering susceptibility genes for asthma and allergy. Nature Reviews Immunology 8(3): 169–182.
 Web Links
    ePath Asthma, susceptibility to; OMIM: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/dispomim.cgi?id=600807
    ePath Ensembl. This website provides detailed information regarding the human genome, including genes, transcripts and polymorphisms. http://www.ensembl.org/index.html
    ePath NCBI: Entrez Gene. This website gives details of all known genes, and provides links to relevant publications. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=gene

Related Sub-Topics:

Inflammation | Allergy and Hypersensitivity | Molecular Genetics of Common and Complex Disease | Gene Mapping by Disease Association
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Article Title: Asthma: Genetics
 
How to Cite close
Willis‐Owen, Saffron AG(Dec 2008) Asthma: Genetics. In: eLS. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester. http://www.els.net [doi: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0005565.pub2]