Originally published in The Forefront on May 7, 2019
Asthma, a common respiratory disease that causes wheezing, coughing and shortness of breath, is the most prevalent chronic respiratory disease worldwide. A new study, published April 30, 2019 in Lancet Respiratory Medicine, is the first large investigation to examine the differences in genetic risk factors for childhood-onset and adult-onset asthma.
This genome-wide association study (GWAS) found that childhood-onset asthma was associated with nearly three times as many genes as adult-onset asthma. Genes associated with adult onset asthma were a subset of those associated with childhood-onset asthma, nearly all with smaller effects on adult-onset asthma than on childhood-onset asthma.
The researchers also found that these childhood-onset genes were highly expressed in epithelial cells (skin). Both childhood-onset and adult-onset asthma genes were highly expressed in blood (immune) cells.
“This was the largest asthma-related GWAS yet attempted,” said study co-author Carole Ober, PhD, professor and chair of the Department of Human Genetics at the University of Chicago, and her collaborator Hae Kyung Im, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Medicine. “We found that the genes involved in adult-onset asthma are largely a subset of genes associated with childhood asthma. At later ages, however, the same genes tend to have smaller effects.”