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According to researchers at the National Institutes of Health and collaborators made up of scientists from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of NIH, and Rice University, Houston, pollution and genetics can worsen condition of asthma patients. The subtle differences in DNA make each person unique, human genes, which are made up of DNA base pairs A, C, G, and T, as written instructions for making proteins.
All humans have the same genes-the same basic instructions, but in some people one DNA base pair has been changed, this genetic variation is called a single nucleotide polymorphism or SNP, and it can alter the way proteins are made and make individuals more or less prone to illness. Scientists examined four SNPs that are involved in a biochemical pathway that leads to inflammatory responses in the body. They explained that SNPs are usually studied one at a time, but they wanted to learn if different combinations of these SNPs, along with pollution exposure, could worsen symptoms in a person with an inflammatory disease like asthma.
Using the SNPs data, they divided the participants into three groups: hyper-responders, or those very sensitive to air pollution and likely to develop inflammation; hypo-responders, or those insensitive to air pollution and less likely to develop inflammation; and those in between. With the help of collaborators at Rice University, the team used the participants’ addresses to calculate their distance from a major road.
Participants were categorized depending on whether they lived more or less than 275 yards from a major roadway. Data suggest that air pollution levels are elevated closer to major roads. The researchers found that asthma sufferers who were hyper-responders and lived closer to heavily travelled roads had the worst asthma symptoms, such as difficulty breathing, chest pain, cough, and wheezing, compared to the other groups. In contrast, asthma patients who were hypo-responders and lived further away from busy roads had milder symptoms.