A group of researchers from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia have identified a gene associated with moderate-to-severe, childhood-onset asthma according to an article published online in the New England Journal of Medicine

The research team examined North American, European, and African American children with persistent asthma and compared them to children without asthma. Changes in the DENND1B gene were associated with more poorly controlled asthma.

The DENND1B gene plays a roles in the release of cytokines. Lead author and director of the Center for Applied Genomics Hakon Hakonarson, M.D., Ph.D., stated in a press release “many of these particles are well-known triggers of asthma. In asthma, patients have an inappropriate immune response in which they develop airway inflammation and overreaction of the airway muscle cells, referred to as airway hyperresponsiveness. The gene mutations in DENND1B appear to lead to overproduction of cytokines that subsequently drive this oversensitive response in asthma patients.”

This finding may potentially lead to new asthma treatments if researchers are able to develop treatments that target the DENND1B gene.

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