Linkage and association of atopic asthma to markers on chromosome 13 in the Japanese population

Chromosome 13 contains several candidate genes for asthma and atopy, and markers on this chromosome have been shown to be linked to phenotypes of atopy or asthma in two genome-wide searches. We conducted a linkage study for atopic asthma using markers spanning the whole of chromosome 13 in Japanese families ascertained through asthmatic children and examined associations of atopic asthma with markers where linkage was suggested. Data were analysed using MAPMAKER/SIBS for the multipoint lod score (MLS) analysis and SIE-PAIR for the transmission disequilibrium test (TDT). Three peaks which exceeded a lod score of 1.0 were observed (MLS 2.4 between D13S175 and D13S217, MLS 2.0 between D13S153 and D13S156, and MLS 1.4 between D13S285 and D13S293), The global TDT for atopic asthma was significant for the marker D13S153 (P = 0.0065) and the 96 bp allele of D13S153 was preferentially transmitted to atopic asthma-affected children (P = 0.0009, Bonferroni correction 5% = 0.0037, 1% = 0.00072).These findings indicate that genes on chromosome 13 may play an important role in the development of atopy or asthma across various populations.