Researchers Identify Gene Linked to Asthma

A consortium of researchers from the United States and the United Kingdom has identified a gene linked with airways remodeling in asthma, offering a potential new target for developing drugs that could prevent lung tissue changes resulting in hyper-responsiveness. The research findings were reported in the July 10, 2002, online publication of Nature.

The investigators performed a whole-genome scan of 460 white families with children from the same biologic parents who had been diagnosed with asthma and were being treated. They found a locus on chromosome 20p13 that was associated with asthma and bronchial hyper-responsiveness. The gene (ADAM33) was found to have a significant link with asthma, based on a range of linkage analyses, including case control, transmission, disequilibrium, and haplotype. The gene codes for a protein that has four functions, of which one serves as a protease likely to play a role in the changes in tissue seen in airways remodeling.

Current treatments for asthma target the allergic component of asthma or dilate constricted airways. However, it may be possible to develop therapies targeted at ADAM33 and its products in order to prevent the onset of airways remodeling even if the allergic component of asthma is present, according to Stephen Holgate, professor of medicine at the University of Southampton (UK) and leader of the research group. Other participants included Genome Therapeutics and Schering-Plough Research Institute.




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