Authors:
Hong X, Hao K, Ladd-Acosta C, Hansen KD, Tsai HJ, Liu X, ... Holt PG., et al.
Authors notes:
Nat Commun. 2015;6:6304.
Keywords:
Arachis hypogaea, genome-wide association, food allergy, US children, European ancestry, specific loci, gene region, genetic risk, allergy
Abstract:
Food allergy (FA) affects 2%-10% of US children and is a growing clinical and public health problem.
Here we conduct the first genome-wide association study of well-defined food allergy (FA), including specific subtypes (peanut, milk and egg) in 2,759 US participants (1,315 children and 1,444 parents) from the Chicago Food Allergy Study, and identify peanut allergy (PA)-specific loci in the HLA-DR and -DQ gene region at 6p21.32, tagged by rs7192 (P=5.5 × 10 -8) and rs9275596 (P=6.8 × 10 -10), in 2,197 participants of European ancestry.
We replicate these associations in an independent sample of European ancestry.
These associations are further supported by meta-analyses across the discovery and replication samples.
Both single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are associated with differential DNA methylation levels at multiple CpG sites (P<5 × 10 -8), and differential DNA methylation of the HLA-DQB1 and HLA-DRB1 genes partially mediate the identified SNP-PA associations.
This study suggests that the HLA-DR and -DQ gene region probably poses significant genetic risk for PA.