Genetic Signatures of Asthma Exacerbation

Heung Woo Park; Kelan G Tantisira

doi:10.4168/aair.2017.9.3.191

Genetic Signatures of Asthma Exacerbation

Allergy Asthma Immunol Res. 2017 May;9(3):191-199. doi: 10.4168/aair.2017.9.3.191.

Authors

Heung Woo Park^{1

2}, Kelan G Tantisira^{2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Internal Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
² The Channing Division of Network Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham & Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
³ Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. rekgt@channing.harvard.edu.

Abstract

Asthma exacerbation (AE) usually denotes worsening of asthma symptoms that requires intense management to prevent further deterioration. AE has been reported to correlate with clinical and demographic factors, such as race, gender, and treatment compliance as well as environmental factors, such as viral infection, smoking, and air pollution. In addition, recent observations suggest that there are likely to be genetic factors specific to AE. Understanding genetic factors specific to AE is essential to develop therapy tailored for exacerbation-prone asthma. Here, we summarize the results of studies involving genetic risk factors for AE. To simplify and enhance understanding, we reviewed the studies according to the following categories: hypothesis-driven approaches, hypothesis-free approaches, gene-environment interactions, and pharmacogenetics.

Keywords: Asthma exacerbation; gene-environment interaction; genetics; genome-wide association study; pharmacogenetics.

Publication types

Review

Abstract

Publication types

Grants and funding