An immunogenetic analysis of nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain-1 (NOD1) variation in asthma.

摘要

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease affecting approximately 7.2 percent of adults residing in the United States. The greatest burden of hospitalization and mortality is mainly observed in ethnic minority populations, thus making asthma one of the leading health disparities in the United States. Many years of research have attributed asthma susceptibility to genetic predisposition; yet, disease etiology remains unknown. In this study, genetic polymorphisms in the nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain-1 (NOD1) gene were investigated for their association with asthma onset and propagation. NOD1, which codes for an intracellular microbial pattern recognition receptor, is thought to be involved in the pathogenesis of asthma. In a case-control study design, single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the regulatory and structural domains of NOD1 were genotyped and analyzed for their association with asthma in an African American population. The results from this study suggest that SNPs rs2075818, rs5743336, and rs2907748 are associated with asthma and highlight gene-environmental interactions as a major contributor to asthma prevalence. This study begins to unravel the relationship of innate immune responses, inflammation, and asthma.