Asthma and allergy share common genetic architectures

In a large-scale study involving tens of thousands of patients, researchers recently found a strong genome-wide genetic association between asthma and allergic diseases. A total of 38 independent genomic loci, seven of which were novel, were associated with both diseases, according to analysis of data from UK Biobank, which is the largest and most complete European Biobank available at present. Understanding the genetic overlap between asthma and allergic diseases can be beneficial for treating disease outcomes more efficiently. For example, drugs targeting shared genetic loci might improve treatment of both diseases. The study, published in Nature Genetics, was partly funded by NHLBI.