General Health

Asthma is an inflammatory disease causing wheezing, coughing and laboured breathing, and can be life-threatening. Many people often think asthma in terms of allergies, but actually, this gene doesn’t affect allergies. It suggest other things besides allergies are driving the disease process. According to World Health Organization, as many as 30% of children develop asthma condition. Scientist has discovered a discovery that may one day lead to be better treatments for one of the most common chronic childhood ailments. It found a genetic variation that significantly raises a child’s risk of developing asthma. The finding adds to evidence for the role genetics – rather than environmental factors – plays in how children develop asthma, said William Cookson at Imperial College, London, UK, who coordinated the multinational study. In the research, they used a new technique to identify genes that predispose children to the disease. They tested the differences in DNA between about 1000 children with asthma, and about 1200 without. The major variation was on chromosome 17, where changes increased the activity of a gene called ORMDL3 in the blood cells of children with asthma. Then, the presence of the genetic variations raises the risk of developing the disease by 60%. “The gene could be a target for new drugs,” says Cookson. In evolutionary terms, ORMDL3 appears to be a very old part of the human genome. Similar genes are found in primitive organisms such as yeast. It may be a relic of some ancient human immune system, although its precise function – and the role it appears to play in asthma – remain unclear.

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