Overview on the current status of asthma genetics.

Asthma is a complex heterogeneous and mutifactorial disease occurring at the interface of multiple genes that interact with various environmental stimuli insulting the immune system at different levels and different times of disease susceptibility. The present paper is a review of the current status of the genetics of asthma. Sequence variants in hundreds of genes have been associated with asthma using both family-based and case control screening methods. As the number of genes known to be associated with asthma risk is rapidly growing, it is essential to begin integrating epidemiologic, genetic and genomic strategies to unravel the relationships between genotype and phenotype, and elucidate the pathogenesis of asthma with the goal to make clinical use of these discoveries. Please cite this paper as: Halapi E and Bjornsdottir US. Overview on the current status of asthma genetics. The Clinical Respiratory Journal 2009; 3: 2-7. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]