Skip Navigation
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences

Use this QR code to view the newest version of this document
Use this QR code to view the newest version of this document

Your Environment. Your Health.

Publication Detail

Title: Genome-wide interaction studies reveal sex-specific asthma risk alleles.

Authors: Myers, Rachel A; Scott, Nicole M; Gauderman, W James; Qiu, Weiliang; Mathias, Rasika A; Romieu, Isabelle; Levin, Albert M; Pino-Yanes, Maria; Graves, Penelope E; Villarreal, Albino Barraza; Beaty, Terri H; Carey, Vincent J; Croteau-Chonka, Damien C; del Rio Navarro, Blanca; Edlund, Christopher; Hernandez-Cadena, Leticia; Navarro-Olivos, Efrain; Padhukasahasram, Badri; Salam, Muhammad T; Torgerson, Dara G; Van den Berg, David J; Vora, Hita; Bleecker, Eugene R; Meyers, Deborah A; Williams, L Keoki; Martinez, Fernando D; Burchard, Esteban G; Barnes, Kathleen C; Gilliland, Frank D; Weiss, Scott T; London, Stephanie J; Raby, Benjamin A; Ober, Carole; Nicolae, Dan L; GRAAD

Published In Hum Mol Genet, (2014 Oct 01)

Abstract: Asthma is a complex disease with sex-specific differences in prevalence. Candidate gene studies have suggested that genotype-by-sex interaction effects on asthma risk exist, but this has not yet been explored at a genome-wide level. We aimed to identify sex-specific asthma risk alleles by performing a genome-wide scan for genotype-by-sex interactions in the ethnically diverse participants in the EVE Asthma Genetics Consortium. We performed male- and female-specific genome-wide association studies in 2653 male asthma cases, 2566 female asthma cases and 3830 non-asthma controls from European American, African American, African Caribbean and Latino populations. Association tests were conducted in each study sample, and the results were combined in ancestry-specific and cross-ancestry meta-analyses. Six sex-specific asthma risk loci had P-values < 1 × 10(-6), of which two were male specific and four were female specific; all were ancestry specific. The most significant sex-specific association in European Americans was at the interferon regulatory factor 1 (IRF1) locus on 5q31.1. We also identify a Latino female-specific association in RAP1GAP2. Both of these loci included single-nucleotide polymorphisms that are known expression quantitative trait loci and have been associated with asthma in independent studies. The IRF1 locus is a strong candidate region for male-specific asthma susceptibility due to the association and validation we demonstrate here, the known role of IRF1 in asthma-relevant immune pathways and prior reports of sex-specific differences in interferon responses.

PubMed ID: 24824216 Exiting the NIEHS site

MeSH Terms: Alleles*; Asthma/epidemiology; Asthma/genetics*; Chromosome Mapping; Continental Population Groups/genetics; Female; Gene Expression Regulation; Genetic Loci; Genetic Predisposition to Disease*; Genome-Wide Association Study*; Genotype; Humans; Male; Odds Ratio; Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; Quantitative Trait Loci; Reproducibility of Results; Sex Factors

Back
to Top