Molecular Genetics Of Bronchial Asthma

Background and Objective: Bronchial asthma is complex genetic disease, the development of which is determined by host susceptibility and environmental exposure. Asthma is characterized by chronic airway inflammation. HLA class II genes have been identified one of candidate locus for asthma and asthma-related phenotype. HLA class II genes are highly polymorphic, and include DR, DP, and DQ. It has already shown that different HLA products or genes seems to represent risk for or protective factors against in the development of asthma. TNFα is pleiotrophic cytokines which orchestrates immune inflammatory response in the pathogensis of asthma, TNFa gene polymorphism has been shown to be associated with an enhanced transcription of TNFa. LTa gene of being disease marker have been applied for disease-associated study. The β₂-adrenergic receptor gene (β₂-AR) is on chromosome 5q31-33 within the region that had been linked to asthma. Three of β₂-AR gene SNPs affect the function of β₂-AR and the response to β₂-agonist.The purpose of this study was to investigate the associations between the aboved genes polymorphism and asthma, asthma-related phenotypes by using molecular biological methods.Methods:In 125 Han origin asthmatics and 96 normal healthy controls with same ethnic nearby Beijing region, we analyzed the following items:(1) Asthma questionnaire: symptom, nocturnal wheezing, asthmatic sign score and asthma-specific life quality, allergy, family history, smoking history, et al.(2) The measurement of the TIgE, slgE (specific to d1, d2, mx2) and screening allergen by the method of RAST.(3) Evaluation of pulmonary ventilatory function (FEV1, FEV1%, FEV1/FVC), bronchial responsiveness challenged by Mch (FEV1%>70%), brocho-reversibility...