Department of Pediatrics, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2013 Jul 3;8(7):e68473. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0068473. Print 2013.
The relative contributions of genetics and environment to asthma in Hispanics or to asthma in children younger than 3 years are not well understood.
To examine the relative contributions of genetics and environment to early-childhood asthma by performing a longitudinal twin study of asthma in Puerto Rican children ≤ 3 years old.
678 twin infants from the Puerto Rico Neo-Natal Twin Registry were assessed for asthma at age 1 year, with follow-up data obtained for 624 twins at age 3 years. Zygosity was determined by DNA microsatellite profiling. Structural equation modeling was performed for three phenotypes at ages 1 and 3 years: physician-diagnosed asthma, asthma medication use in the past year, and ≥ 1 hospitalization for asthma in the past year. Models were additionally adjusted for early-life environmental tobacco smoke exposure, sex, and age.
The prevalences of physician-diagnosed asthma, asthma medication use, and hospitalization for asthma were 11.6%, 10.8%, 4.9% at age 1 year, and 34.1%, 40.1%, and 8.5% at 3 years, respectively. Shared environmental effects contributed to the majority of variance in susceptibility to physician-diagnosed asthma and asthma medication use in the first year of life (84%-86%), while genetic effects drove variance in all phenotypes (45%-65%) at age 3 years. Early-life environmental tobacco smoke, sex, and age contributed to variance in susceptibility.
Our longitudinal study in Puerto Rican twins demonstrates a changing contribution of shared environmental effects to liability for physician-diagnosed asthma and asthma medication use between ages 1 and 3 years. Early-life environmental tobacco smoke reduction could markedly reduce asthma morbidity in young Puerto Rican children.
遗传和环境对西班牙裔人群中哮喘或 3 岁以下儿童哮喘的相对贡献尚不清楚。
通过对≤3 岁波多黎各儿童哮喘进行纵向双胞胎研究，研究遗传和环境对幼儿期哮喘的相对贡献。
对来自波多黎各新生儿双胞胎登记处的 678 对双胞胎婴儿进行哮喘评估，年龄为 1 岁，对 624 对双胞胎进行了 3 岁的随访数据。通过 DNA 微卫星谱分析确定同卵性。对年龄为 1 岁和 3 岁的三个表型（医生诊断的哮喘、过去一年使用哮喘药物以及过去一年因哮喘住院≥1 次）进行结构方程建模。模型还针对生命早期环境烟草烟雾暴露、性别和年龄进行了调整。
1 岁时，医生诊断的哮喘、哮喘药物使用和哮喘住院的患病率分别为 11.6%、10.8%和 4.9%，3 岁时分别为 34.1%、40.1%和 8.5%。在生命的第一年，共享环境因素对医生诊断的哮喘和哮喘药物使用的易感性有较大影响（84%-86%），而遗传因素对所有表型的易感性都有影响（45%-65%）在 3 岁时。生命早期的环境烟草烟雾、性别和年龄对易感性的差异有贡献。
我们在波多黎各双胞胎中的纵向研究表明，在 1 岁至 3 岁之间，共享环境因素对医生诊断的哮喘和哮喘药物使用的易感性的贡献发生了变化。减少生命早期的环境烟草烟雾可能会显著降低年轻波多黎各儿童的哮喘发病率。
