生物谷报道:科学家最近找到一种基因,它会使儿童患哮喘的风险增加60%至70%。新发现可能有助于开发治疗儿童哮喘的新型靶向药物。
美、英、法、德等国科学家在新一期《自然》杂志上报告说,他们对2000多名儿童进行了研究,研究对象中的994人为哮喘患者,1243人没有患哮喘。科学家以这些儿童为对象,分析了组成DNA(脱氧核糖核酸)的核苷酸的变异情况。
在分析了30多万个变异核苷酸分子后,科学家发现一种名为ORMDL3的基因与儿童哮喘发作“高度相关”。分析显示,携带这种基因的儿童患哮喘的概率要比普通儿童高60%至70%。
科学家称,这是迄今发现的有关儿童哮喘的最强有力的基因证据。他们计划下一步开展更大规模研究,寻找其他与儿童哮喘相关的基因,并希望将来能够开发出以这些基因为靶向的治疗儿童哮喘药物。
原始出处:
Nature advance online publication 4 July 2007 | doi:10.1038/nature06014; Received 24 April 2007; Accepted 14 June 2007; Published online 4 July 2007
Genetic variants regulating ORMDL3 expression contribute to the risk of childhood asthma
Miriam F. Moffatt1,16, Michael Kabesch2,16, Liming Liang3,16, Anna L. Dixon4, David Strachan5, Simon Heath6, Martin Depner2, Andrea von Berg7, Albrecht Bufe8, Ernst Rietschel9, Andrea Heinzmann10, Burkard Simma11, Thomas Frischer12, Saffron A. G. Willis-Owen1, Kenny C. C. Wong1, Thomas Illig13, Christian Vogelberg14, Stephan K. Weiland15, Erika von Mutius2, Gonçalo R. Abecasis3, Martin Farrall4, Ivo G. Gut6, G. Mark Lathrop6 & William O. C. Cookson1
National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College, London SW3 6LY, UK
University Children's Hospital, Ludwig Maximilians University, D80337 Munich, Germany
Center for Statistical Genetics, Department of Biostatistics, SPH II, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-2029, USA
Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 7BN, UK
Division of Community Health Science, St George's, University of London, London SW17 0RE, UK
Centre National de Génotypage, Institut Génomique, Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique, 91057 Evry, France
Research Institute for the Prevention of Allergic Diseases, Children's Department, Marien-Hospital, D46483 Wesel, Germany
Department of Experimental Pneumology, Ruhr-University, D44789 Bochum, Germany
University Children's Hospital, University of Cologne, D50924 Cologne, Germany
University Children's Hospital, Albert Ludwigs University, D79106 Freiburg, Germany
Children's Department, Feldkirch Hospital, A6800 Feldkirch, Austria
University Children's Hospital Vienna, A1090 Vienna, Austria
Institute of Epidemiology, GSF-Research Centre for Environment and Health, D85764 Neuherberg, Germany
University Children's Hospital, Technical University Dresden, D01307 Dresden, Germany
Institute of Epidemiology, Ulm University, D89081 Germany
These authors contributed equally to this work.
Correspondence to: William O. C. Cookson1 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to W.O.C.C. (Email: w.cookson@imperial.ac.uk).
Asthma is caused by a combination of poorly understood genetic and environmental factors1, 2. We have systematically mapped the effects of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on the presence of childhood onset asthma by genome-wide association. We characterized more than 317,000 SNPs in DNA from 994 patients with childhood onset asthma and 1,243 non-asthmatics, using family and case-referent panels. Here we show multiple markers on chromosome 17q21 to be strongly and reproducibly associated with childhood onset asthma in family and case-referent panels with a combined P value of P < 10-12. In independent replication studies the 17q21 locus showed strong association with diagnosis of childhood asthma in 2,320 subjects from a cohort of German children (P = 0.0003) and in 3,301 subjects from the British 1958 Birth Cohort (P = 0.0005). We systematically evaluated the relationships between markers of the 17q21 locus and transcript levels of genes in Epstein–Barr virus (EBV)-transformed lymphoblastoid cell lines from children in the asthma family panel used in our association study. The SNPs associated with childhood asthma were consistently and strongly associated (P < 10-22) in cis with transcript levels of ORMDL3, a member of a gene family that encodes transmembrane proteins anchored in the endoplasmic reticulum3. The results indicate that genetic variants regulating ORMDL3 expression are determinants of susceptibility to childhood asthma.