A thymic stromal lymphopoietin gene variant is associated with asthma and airway hyperresponsiveness

BackgroundThe epithelial cell–derived protein thymic stromal lymphopoietin stimulates dendritic and mast cells to promote proallergic TH2 responses. Studies of transgenic expression of thymic stromal lymphopoietin and its receptor knockout mice have emphasized its critical role in the development of allergic inflammation. Association of genetic variation in thymic stromal lymphopoietin with IgE levels has been reported for human subjects.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between variants of thymic stromal lymphopoietin and asthma and related phenotypes.MethodsWe selected 6 single nucleotide polymorphisms in thymic stromal lymphopoietin and genotyped 5565 individuals from 4 independent asthma studies and tested for association with asthma, atopy, atopic asthma, and airway hyperresponsiveness by using a general allelic likelihood ratio test. P values were corrected for the effective number of independent single nucleotide polymorphisms and phenotypes.ResultsThe A allele of rs1837253, which is 5.7 kb upstream of the transcription start site of the gene, was associated with protection from asthma, atopic asthma, and airway hyperresponsiveness, with the odds ratios and corrected P values for each being 0.79 and 0.0058; 0.75 and 0.0074; and 0.76 and 0.0094, respectively. Associations between thymic stromal lymphopoietin and asthma-related phenotypes were the most statistically significant observations in our study, which has to date examined 98 candidate genes. Full results are available online at http://genapha.icapture.ubc.ca/.ConclusionsA genetic variant in the region of the thymic stromal lymphopoietin gene is associated with the phenotypes of asthma and airway hyperresponsiveness.