title: Pharmacogenomics of pediatric asthma.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Asthma is a complex disease with multiple genetic and environmental factors contributing to it. A component of this complexity is a highly variable response to pharmacological therapy. Pharmacogenomics is the study of the role of genetic determinants in the variable response to therapy. A number of examples of possible pharmacogenomic approaches that may prove of value in the management of asthma are discussed below.
  
  
  METHODS
  A search of PubMed, Google scholar, E-Medicine, BMJ and Mbase was done using the key words "pharmacogenomics of asthma", "pharmacogenomics of β-agonist, glucocorticoids, leukotriene modifiers, theophylline, muscarinic antagonists in asthma".
  
  
  RESULTS
  Presently, there are limited examples of gene polymorphism that can influence response to asthma therapy. Polymorphisms that alter response to asthma therapy include Arg16Gly, Gln27Glu, Thr164Ile for β-agonist receptor, polymorphism of glucocorticoid receptor gene, CRHR1 variants and polymorphism of LTC4S, ALOX5. Polymorphic variants of muscarinic receptors, PDE4 and CYP450 gene variants.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  It was concluded that genetic variation can improve the response to asthma therapy. However, no gene polymorphism has been associated with consistent results in different populations. Therefore, asthma pharmacogenomic studies in different populations with a large number of subjects are required to make possible tailoring the asthma therapy according to the genetic characteristic of individual patient.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, C.S.M.M.U., Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India.
authors.forename: Sarika
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gupta
authors.forename: Shally
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Awasthi