Making Sense of Asthma Genes

There are two causes of asthma — the environment and genetic variants. Each cause accounts for about 50 percent of the risk of the disease. The power of the public databases and the methods of genotyping used in genetics mean that the discovery of genes and the genetic variation underlying the various forms of asthma is increasing quickly.Genetics concerns polymorphism (variation) in genes. The most obvious effects of polymorphisms appear when they alter protein coding sequences and cause mutations. However, most of the polymorphisms that cause common diseases alter gene function through more subtle mechanisms. Such mechanisms may affect . . .