UCSF

Background

Genome-wide association studies of asthma have implicated many genetic risk factors, with well-replicated associations at approximately 10 loci that account for only a small proportion of the genetic risk.

Objectives

We aimed to identify additional asthma risk loci by performing an extensive replication study of the results from the EVE Consortium meta-analysis.

Methods

We selected 3186 single nucleotide polymorphisms for replication based on the P values from the EVE Consortium meta-analysis. These single nucleotide polymorphisms were genotyped in ethnically diverse replication samples from 9 different studies, totaling 7202 cases, 6426 controls, and 507 case-parent trios. Association analyses were conducted within each participating study, and the resulting test statistics were combined in a meta-analysis.

Results

Two novel associations were replicated in European Americans: rs1061477 in the KLK3 gene on chromosome 19 (combined odds ratio = 1.18; 95% CI, 1.10-1.25) and rs9570077 (combined odds ratio =1.20; 95% CI, 1.12-1.29) on chromosome 13q21. We could not replicate any additional associations in the African Americans or Latinos.

Conclusions

This extended replication study identified 2 additional asthma risk loci in populations of European descent. The absence of additional loci for African Americans and Latinos highlights the difficulty in replicating associations in admixed populations.