Asthma Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Asthma, including details on symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, causes, medications.

Allele-specific targeting of microRNAs to HLA-G and risk of asthma.

Tan Z, Randall G, Fan J, Camoretti-Mercado B, Brockman-Schneider R, Pan L, Solway J, Gern JE, Lemanske RF, Nicolae D, Ober C

Department of Human Genetics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA. tzheng@bsd.uchicago.edu

HLA-G is a nonclassic, class I HLA molecule that has important immunomodulatory properties. Previously, we identified HLA-G as an asthma-susceptibility gene and discovered that the risk of asthma in a child was determined by both the child's HLA-G genotype and the mother's affection status. Here we report a SNP in the 3' untranslated region of HLA-G that influences the targeting of three microRNAs (miRNAs) to this gene, and we suggest that allele-specific targeting of these miRNAs accounts, at least in part, for our earlier observations on HLA-G and the risk of asthma.

Published 11 September 2007 in Am J Hum Genet, 81(4): 829-34.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2004-2008 Asthma Research Today. All Rights Reserved.