Allergy Asthma Immunol Res.  2019 Mar;11(2):170-187. 10.4168/aair.2019.11.2.170.

Lessons Learned From GWAS of Asthma

Affiliations
  • 1Department of Pediatrics, Severance Hospital, Institute of Allergy, Brain Korea 21 PLUS project for Medical Science, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea. kwkim@yuhs.ac
  • 2Department of Human Genetics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.

Abstract

Asthma is a common complex disease of the airways. Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) of asthma have identified many risk alleles and loci that have been replicated in worldwide populations. Although the risk alleles identified by GWAS have small effects and explain only a small portion of prevalence, the discovery of asthma loci can provide an understanding of its genetic architecture and the molecular pathways involved in disease pathogenesis. These discoveries can translate into advances in clinical care by identifying therapeutic targets, preventive strategies and ultimately approaches for personalized medicine. In this review, we summarize results from GWAS of asthma from the past 10 years and the insights gleaned from these discoveries.

Keyword

Asthma; genome-wide association study

MeSH Terms

Alleles
Asthma*
Genome-Wide Association Study
Precision Medicine
Prevalence

Figure

  • Figure Word cloud consisting of asthma risk genes from asthma GWASs (see Table 2 for references). Genes at genome-wide significant loci were selected based on the nearest gene. Word weight was assigned based on the number of times these genes were at loci that met the criteria for genome-wide significance. Word cloud was made using R package ‘wordcloud’ version 2.5. Figure drawn by H. Jang. GWAS, genome-wide association study.


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