Background-We aimed to identify novel genetic variants affecting asthma risk, since these might provide novel insights into molecular mechanisms underlying asthma.Methods-We performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) in 2,669 physiciandiagnosed asthmatics and 4,528 controls from Australia.Seven loci were prioritised for replication after combining our results with those from the GABRIEL consortium (n=26,475), and these were tested in an additional 25,358 independent samples from four in-silico cohorts.Quantitative multi-SNP scores of genetic load were constructed on the basis of results from the GABRIEL study and tested for association with asthma in our Australian GWAS dataset.

Identification of IL6R and chromosome 11q13.5 as risk loci for asthma