The genetic basis of allergic diseases

There are over 100 genes that have been reported to be associated with atopy, asthma or related phenotypes. Like other atopic diseases, asthma is a complex disorder caused by interactions between multiple genes of small or modest effect and equally important environmental factors. Asthma and atopic diseases have an important genetic component but no clear pattern of inheritance. Replication of genetic associations and demonstration of a functional link between the associated variants and disease are required to confirm atopy and asthma susceptibility genes. Certain important recently detected genes which were replicated by independent association studies and have functional data are reviewed in this article.

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