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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Transl Med. Apr 12, 2016; 5(1): 14-25
Published online Apr 12, 2016. doi: 10.5528/wjtm.v5.i1.14
Potential therapeutic targets from genetic and epigenetic approaches for asthma
Youming Zhang
Youming Zhang, Genomic Medicine Section, National Heart and Lung Institute, London SW3 6LY, United Kingdom
Author contributions: The author contributed to this paper with conception and literature review and analysis, drafting and critical revision and editing, and final approval of the final version.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There are no known conflicts of interest arising from this review.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dr. Youming Zhang, Genomic Medicine Section, National Heart and Lung Institute, Dovehouse Street, London SW3 6LY, United Kingdom. y.zhang@imperial.ac.uk
Telephone: +44-20-759479174
Received: August 5, 2015
Peer-review started: August 7, 2015
First decision: November 3, 2015
Revised: November 17, 2015
Accepted: December 29, 2015
Article in press: January 4, 2016
Published online: April 12, 2016
Processing time: 249 Days and 19.1 Hours
Abstract

Asthma is a complex disorder characterised by inflammation of airway and symptoms of wheeze and shortness of breath. Allergic asthma, atopic dermatitis and allergic rhinitis are immunoglobulin E (IgE) related diseases. Current therapies targeting asthma rely on non-specific medication to control airway inflammation and prevent symptoms. Severe asthma remains difficult to treat. Genetic and genomic approaches of asthma and IgE identified many novel loci underling the disease pathophysiology. Recent epigenetic approaches also revealed the insights of DNA methylation and chromatin modification on histones in asthma and IgE. More than 30 microRNAs have been identified to have regulating roles in asthma. Understanding the pathways of the novel genetic loci and epigenetic elements in asthma and IgE will provide new therapeutic means for clinical management of the disease in future.

Keywords: Asthma; Immunoglobulin E; Genome-wide association studies; Epigenetics; MicroRNA

Core tip: Asthma is a complex disorder characterised by inflammation of airway. Allergic asthma is an immunoglobulin E (IgE) related disease. Severe asthma remains difficult to treat. Genetic and genomic approaches of asthma and IgE identified many novel loci underling the disease pathophysiology. Recent epigenetic approaches also revealed the insights of DNA methylation and chromatin modification on histones in asthma and IgE. More than 30 microRNAs have been identified to have regulation roles in asthma. Understanding the pathways of the novel genetic loci and epigenetic elements in asthma and IgE will provide new therapeutic means for clinical management of the disease in future.