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No association between genetic ancestry and susceptibility to asthma or atopy in Canary Islanders

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Abstract

Asthma is a complex respiratory disease characterized by chronic inflammation of airways and frequently associated with atopic symptoms. The population from the Canary Islands, which has resulted from a recent admixture of North African and Iberian populations, shows the highest prevalence of asthma and atopic symptoms among the Spanish populations. Although environmental particularities would account for the majority of such disparity, genetic ancestry might play a role in increasing the susceptibility of asthma or atopy, as have been demonstrated in other recently African-admixed populations. Here, we aimed to explore whether genetic ancestry was associated with asthma or related traits in the Canary Islanders. For that, a total of 734 DNA samples from unrelated individuals of the GOA study, self-reporting at least two generations of ancestors from the Canary Islands (391 asthmatics and 343 controls), were successfully genotyped for 83 ancestry informative markers (AIMs), which allowed to precisely distinguishing between North African and Iberian ancestries. No association was found between genetic ancestry and asthma or related traits after adjusting by demographic variables differing among compared groups. Similarly, none of the individual AIMs was associated with asthma when results were considered in the context of the multiple comparisons performed (0.005 ≤ p value ≤ 0.042; 0.221 ≤ q value ≤ 0.443). Our results suggest that if genetic ancestry were involved in the susceptibility to asthma or related traits among Canary Islanders, its effects would be modest. Larger studies, examining more genetic variants, would be needed to explore such possibility.

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Acknowledgments

We thank David Comas and Jose M. Larruga for providing Northwest African samples. This work was supported by grants from the Health Institute “Carlos III” (FIS PI08/1383, FIS PI11/00623) and cofinanced by the European Regional Development Funds, “A way of making Europe” from the European Union, by a grant from Fundación Canaria de Investigación y Salud (FUNCIS 27/07), and by a specific agreement between Instituto de Salud Carlos III and Gobierno de Canarias (EMER07/001).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CIBER de Enfermedades Respiratorias, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain

    María Pino-Yanes, Almudena Corrales, Jesús Villar & Carlos Flores

  2. Research Unit, Hospital Universitario N.S. de Candelaria, Carretera del Rosario s/n, 38010, Santa Cruz, Tenerife, Spain

    María Pino-Yanes, Almudena Corrales & Carlos Flores

  3. Allergy Unit, Hospital Universitario Dr. Negrin, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain

    José Cumplido & Teresa Carrillo

  4. Allergy Unit, Hospital del Tórax, Complejo Hospitalario Universitario NS Candelaria, Tenerife, Spain

    Ruperto González & Inmaculada Sánchez-Machín

  5. Research Unit, Hospital Universitario Dr. Negrin, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain

    María José Torres-Galván

  6. Neumology Unit, Hospital Universitario de Canarias, Tenerife, Spain

    Orlando Acosta Fernández

  7. Allergy Unit, Hospital Universitario Insular de Gran Canaria, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain

    Javier Figueroa & Anselmo Sánchez-Palacios

  8. Multidisciplinary Organ Dysfunction Evaluation Research Network (MODERN), Research Unit, Hospital Universitario Dr. Negrin, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain

    Jesús Villar

  9. Keenan Research Center, St. Michael’s Hospital, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Jesús Villar

  10. Genetics Laboratory, Instituto Universitario de Enfermedades Tropicales y Salud Pública de Canarias, Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain

    Mariano Hernández

Authors
  1. María Pino-Yanes
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  2. Almudena Corrales
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  3. José Cumplido
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  4. Ruperto González
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  5. María José Torres-Galván
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  6. Orlando Acosta Fernández
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  7. Inmaculada Sánchez-Machín
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  8. Javier Figueroa
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  9. Anselmo Sánchez-Palacios
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  10. Jesús Villar
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  11. Mariano Hernández
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  12. Teresa Carrillo
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  13. Carlos Flores
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Carlos Flores.

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Pino-Yanes, M., Corrales, A., Cumplido, J. et al. No association between genetic ancestry and susceptibility to asthma or atopy in Canary Islanders. Immunogenetics 64, 705–711 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00251-012-0631-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00251-012-0631-3

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