Rationale and design of the multiethnic Pharmacogenomics in Childhood Asthma consortium

AIM

International collaboration is needed to enable large-scale pharmacogenomics studies in childhood asthma. Here, we describe the design of the Pharmacogenomics in Childhood Asthma (PiCA) consortium.

MATERIALS & METHODS

Investigators of each study participating in PiCA provided data on the study characteristics by answering an online questionnaire.

RESULTS

A total of 21 studies, including 14,227 children/young persons (58% male), from 12 different countries are currently enrolled in the PiCA consortium. Fifty six percent of the patients are Caucasians. In total, 7619 were inhaled corticosteroid users. Among patients from 13 studies with available data on asthma exacerbations, a third reported exacerbations despite inhaled corticosteroid use. In the future pharmacogenomics studies within the consortium, the pharmacogenomics analyses will be performed separately in each center and the results will be meta-analyzed.

CONCLUSION

PiCA is a valuable platform to perform pharmacogenetics studies within a multiethnic pediatric asthma population.

Polymorphism of the IL13 gene may be associated with Uterine leiomyomas in Slovenian women

Uterine leiomyomas (ULM) are a common cause of solid pelvic tumors in women. Their etiopathogenesis remains unclear. Interleukins (ILs) and their receptors can influence tumor biology of ULM. The aim of this study was to evaluate single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) exhibited in the genes IL4 (rs2070874), IL4R (rs1801275), IL12RB1 (rs11575934), IL12B (rs6887695), IL13 (rs20541) and IL23R (rs7517847) as risk factors for ULM in Slovenian women and to identify associations between corresponding clinical parameters and the analyzed SNPs. In addition, solitary and multiple ULM were compared to identify clinical and/or genetic parameters influencing their occurrence. We conducted a case-control study that included 181 women with leiomyomas and 133 control subjects. Genotyping of selected SNPs was performed using polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) and high resolution melting (HRM) techniques. The TT genotype of rs20541 (IL13) was significantly associated with decreased risk of ULM compared to both the CC and CT genotypes [p = 0.018; odds ratio (OR) = 0.184; 95% confidence interval (95% CI) = 0.048-0.7121. Using genetic and clinical data to develop a predictive model with logistic regression, we found that adenomyosis, higher age at diagnosis, family history of ULM occurrence, earlier menarche, lower number of pregnancies and lower age at first sexual intercourse, the G allele and genotypes AG and GG of rs1801275 (IL4R) were associated with an increased risk of multiple ULM occurrence. We also found an association between rs20541 (IL13) and 17ß-estradiol serum levels in patients with multiple ULM (p 0.003). Our study showed, for the first time, that rs20541 (IL13) may contribute to susceptibility of ULM development and that rs1801275 (IL4R) can predispose patients to develop multiple ULM.

Association among ORMDL3 gene expression, 17q21 polymorphism and response to treatment with inhaled corticosteroids in children with asthma

Recent genome-wide association studies linked childhood asthma with single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in ORM1-like protein 3 (ORMDL3) gene region on chromosome 17q21. We analyzed the effect of functional SNP rs2872507 in ORMDL3 gene region on the response to antiasthmatic treatment with inhaled corticosteroids (ICSs) and ORMDL3 gene expression. Forced expiratory volume in 1 s increased significantly by 13.3% of predicted value after therapy in atopic asthmatics with AA genotype, compared with 7.0% in heterozygotes and 4.9% increase in GG homozygotes (P=0.0176). Median relative expression of ORMDL3 gene in asthmatics with AA, AG and GG genotypes was 0.75, 1.05 and 1.21, respectively (P<0.0001). Treatment with ICSs was significantly associated with the increase of median relative expression of ORMDL3 gene, from 0.88 to 1.21 (P=0.0032) in atopic asthmatics. Our results suggest that rs2872507 is associated with ORMDL3 gene expression and with ICS treatment response in children with atopic asthma.