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Smoking is a well-established major risk factor for chronic obstructive pulmonary
disease (COPD) and impedes with response to treatment in patients with asthma and
COPD (Hylkema et al., 2007). Cigarette smoking can be considered as a major global
health hazard. It has been estimated that about 450 million adults would be killed by
smoking between 2000 and 2050 (Prabhat Jha, 2009). Many epidemiological and family studies
have pointed out that genes that predispose to asthma interact with environmental
tobacco smoke exposure in early life (Xu and
Weiss, 2002; Choudhry et al., 2005; and Meyers et al., 2005). A gene encoding a disintegrin and metalloprotease (ADAM33) located
on chromosome 20p13 was first identified as an asthma susceptibility gene by
positional cloning approach in the year 2002 in a genome-wide scan of a Caucasian population
(Van Eerdewegh et al., 2002). This gene was found to be associated with COPD and
lung function in long-term tobacco smokers (Sadeghnejad et al., 2009). A published study has also showed that association of ADAM33 polymorphisms with lung function decline
in the general population among tobacco smokers (Van Diemen et al., 2005). Therefore, we aimed at investigating association of five single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP)
of ADAM33 (F+1 (rs511898) G/A, S2 (rs528557) G/C, ST+4 (rs44707) A/C, ST+5 (rs597980)
C/T and V4 (rs2787094) C/G) with lung function, as calculated by peak expiratory flow
(PEF) meter in normal healthy male population, including smokers and nonsmokers.
This study was conducted in Chhattrapati Shahuji Maharaj Medical University,
Lucknow, India, and was part of a larger study "to assess the role of ADAM33 Gene expression
in diagnosis and management of asthmatics." We included healthy males between 16
years and 50 years of age group who were either medical resident doctors or employees of
the hospital. Included were those who fulfilled inclusion criteria and gave consent
of participation. The criteria for selecting subjects were: (a) No past or present
physician's diagnosis of asthma and other pulmonary and heart diseases; (b) No history of
wheezing, shortness of breath, and other symptoms of heart and lung diseases; (c) No use
of medications for pulmonary and heart disease; and (d) Absence of first-degree
relatives with a history of asthma. Prior to inclusion, subjects were examined carefully to rule
out any underlying heart, lung or general disease. All subjects were personally
interviewed about their age, medical history of other diseases, demographic features, family
history of asthma/other pulmonary disease, present smoking habit and number of bidi/cigarette consumption per day, residence near heavy traffic and presence of smoke emitting
industry near residence. |
