Genome-wide and follow-up studies identify CEP68 gene variants associated with risk of aspirin-intolerant asthma.

• Main Authors: Jeong-Hyun Kim, Byung-Lae Park, Hyun Sub Cheong, Joon Seol Bae, Jong Sook Park, An Soo Jang, Soo-Taek Uh, Jae-Sung Choi, Yong-Hoon Kim, Mi-Kyeong Kim, Inseon S Choi, Sang Heon Cho, Byoung Whui Choi, Choon-Sik Park, Hyoung Doo Shin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2010-01-01
• Series: PLoS ONE
• Online Access: http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC2972220?pdf=render

Aspirin-intolerant asthma (AIA) is a rare condition that is characterized by the development of bronchoconstriction in asthmatic patients after ingestion of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs including aspirin. However, the underlying mechanisms of AIA occurrence are still not fully understood. To identify the genetic variations associated with aspirin intolerance in asthmatics, the first stage of genome-wide association study with 109,365 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) was undertaken in a Korean AIA (n = 80) cohort and aspirin-tolerant asthma (ATA, n = 100) subjects as controls. For the second stage of follow-up study, 150 common SNPs from 11 candidate genes were genotyped in 163 AIA patients including intermediate AIA (AIA-I) subjects and 429 ATA controls. Among 11 candidate genes, multivariate logistic analyses showed that SNPs of CEP68 gene showed the most significant association with aspirin intolerance (P values of co-dominant for CEP68, 6.0×10(-5) to 4.0×10(-5)). All seven SNPs of the CEP68 gene showed linkage disequilibrium (LD), and the haplotype of CEP68_ht4 (T-G-A-A-A-C-G) showed a highly significant association with aspirin intolerance (OR= 2.63; 95% CI= 1.64-4.21; P = 6.0×10(-5)). Moreover, the nonsynonymous CEP68 rs7572857G>A variant that replaces glycine with serine showed a higher decline of forced expiratory volume in 1s (FEV(1)) by aspirin provocation than other variants (P = 3.0×10(-5)). Our findings imply that CEP68 could be a susceptible gene for aspirin intolerance in asthmatics, suggesting that the nonsynonymous Gly74Ser could affect the polarity of the protein structure.