PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 17 (UPI) -- Scientists say a gene variant that raises the risk of childhood asthma in European children has a similar effect on white U.S. children but not blacks.
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia researchers found variants in the ORMDL3 gene were associated with childhood-onset asthma among U.S. patients of European ancestry. In 2007 a study team in Europe had identified the ORMDL3 gene, located on chromosome 17, as contributing to childhood asthma among British and German children.
"We replicated the European findings among American children and showed the gene plays a role in asthma of any severity level," said study leader Dr. Hakon Hakonarson, director of the Center for Applied Genomics at Children's Hospital. "The previous group had detected the association of ORMDL3 with asthma by examining families having two or three members with severe disease."
The study team analyzed DNA from 807 white children with asthma, compared with 2,583 white children without the disease. Another cohort consisted of African-American children, of whom 1,456 had asthma and 1,973 were healthy controls.
The study was reported in the Aug. 29 online issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
