Asthma gene discoveries offer new hope

Thursday February 19th, 2015

New genetic discoveries could open the way for new treatments and even drugs to treat asthma, British researchers say.

The multi-national research has linked more than 30 genes to asthma and allergies, according to scientists at Imperial College, London, UK.

The ten year project led scientists to genes involved with the antibody immunoglobin E, IgE, which plays a key role in allergic reactions.

They had analysed white blood cells in British families with asthma, looking for genetic activity linked to IgE levels.

Researchers in the USA, Canada and Sweden were also involved in the research, published last night in Nature.

Researcher Professor Miriam Moffatt said: "The genes we identified represent new potential drug targets for allergic diseases as well as biomarkers that may predict which patients will respond to existing expensive therapies."

Fellow researcher Professor William Cookson said: "It isn't just the genetic code that can influence disease and DNA sequencing can only take you so far. Our study shows that modifications on top of the DNA that control how genes are read may be even more important."

The findings were welcomed by the charity Asthma UK.

Dr Samantha Walker, director of research, said: "Although we’ve known for a long time that asthma runs in families, we are just beginning to realise that it isn’t one, single disease but can in fact be broken down into different sub-types.

"This is important because if we can predict which people have these different types of asthma, we are more likely to be able to tailor the most effective treatments to them."

L. Liang et al. An epigenome-wide association study of total serum immunoglobulin E concentration. Nature 9 February 2015; doi:10.1038/nature14125

Tags: Allergies & Asthma | Europe | Genetics | North America | Pharmaceuticals | UK News

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