Ding L, Li D, Wathen M, Altaye M, Mersha TB. African Ancestry is Associated with Cluster-based childhood asthma subphenotypes. BMC Med Genomics. 2018; 31(11).
Childhood asthma is a syndrome composed of heterogeneous phenotypes. The objective of the study was to identify clinically homogeneous childhood asthma subphenotypes and assess subphenotype-specific genetic ancestry. Using two independent prospective of childhood asthma cohorts, we were able to identify three homogeneous subphenotypes that showed significant differences in African ancestry proportion. Our findings suggest that defining asthma homogeneous subgroups on the basis of genetic ancestry proportion is an essential step to facilitate our understanding of asthma etiology, development of targeted therapies, and providing personalized treatments. Our approach is distinct from previous efforts in that we applied ancestry analysis instead of clinical data to define ancestry-specific subphenotypes which can be subsequently used as the basis of ancestry based clinical risk prediction.
Zhang, X; Biagini Myers, JM; Yadagiri, VK; Ulm, A; Chen, X; Weirauch, MT; Khurana Hershey, GK; Ji, H. Nasal DNA methylation differentiates corticosteroid treatment response in pediatric asthma: A pilot study. PloS one. 2017; 12(10):e0186150-e0186150.
The article identifies novel genes and pathways that epigenetically distinguishes asthmatic children who respond poorly to steroid treatment from those who respond well. It will help to design personalized treatment strategy for childhood asthma.
Myers, KC; Sauter, S; Zhang, X; Bleesing, JJ; Davies, SM; Wells, SI; Mehta, PA; Kumar, A; Marmer, D; Marsh, R; Brown, D; Butsch Kovacic, M. Impaired immune function in children and adults with Fanconi anemia. Pediatric Blood and Cancer. 2017; 64(11):e26599-e26599.
This detailed immunologic assessment of a large cohort of individuals with Fanconi anemia (FA) who have not undergone bone marrow transplantation or developed malignancies demonstrated a significantly high rate of humoral and cellular immune dysfunction that might in part explain the great risk of cancer development at early ages.
Perez Ramirez, L; Wendroth, H; Martin, LJ; Pilipenko, VV; He, H; Kroner, J; Ryan, PH; LeMasters, GK; Lockey, JE; Bernstein, DI; Khurana Hershey, GK; Biagini Myers, JM. High number of early respiratory infections in association with allergic sensitization to mold promotes childhood asthma. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. 2018; 141(5):1921-1924.e4.
Early sensitization to mold combined with a high number of respiratory infections in the first year of life increases asthma risk over 12 times. This suggest a synergistic effect of early mold sensitization and respiratory infection in the development of asthma.
Brown, KR; Krouse, RZ; Calatroni, A; Visness, CM; Sivaprasad, U; Kercsmar, CM; Matsui, EC; West, JB; Makhija, MM; Gill, MA; Kim, H; Kattan, M; Pillai, D; Gern, JE; Busse, WW; Togias, A; Liu, AH; Khurana Hershey, GK. Endotypes of difficult-to-control asthma in inner-city African American children. PloS one. 2017; 12(7):e0180778-e0180778.
Serum cytokines data suggest that treatment regimens that specifically target inflammatory pathways characteristic of Difficult-to-Control asthma in African Americans may be beneficial in treating this at risk population.