Psychosocial experiences modulate asthma-associated genes through gene-environment interactions

  1. Justyna A Resztak
  2. Allison K Farrell
  3. Henriette Mair-Meijers
  4. Adnan Alazizi
  5. Xiaoquan Wen
  6. Derek E Wildman
  7. Samuele Zilioli
  8. Richard B Slatcher
  9. Roger Pique-Regi  Is a corresponding author
  10. Francesca Luca  Is a corresponding author
  1. Wayne State University, United States
  2. Miami University, United States
  3. University of Michigan, United States
  4. University of South Florida, United States

Abstract

Social interactions and the overall psychosocial environment have a demonstrated impact on health, particularly for people living in disadvantaged urban areas. Here we investigated the effect of psychosocial experiences on gene expression in peripheral blood immune cells of children with asthma in Metro Detroit. Using RNA-sequencing and a new machine learning approach, we identified transcriptional signatures of 19 variables including psychosocial factors, blood cell composition and asthma symptoms. Importantly, we found 169 genes associated with asthma or allergic disease that are regulated by psychosocial factors, and 344 significant gene-environment interactions for gene expression levels. These results demonstrate that immune gene expression mediates the link between negative psychosocial experiences and asthma risk.

Data availability

The data are available on dbGAP. Accession number: phs002182.v1.p1.

The following data sets were generated

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Justyna A Resztak

    Wayne State University, Detroit, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  2. Allison K Farrell

    Department of Psychology, Miami University, Oxford, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  3. Henriette Mair-Meijers

    Wayne State University, Detroit, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Adnan Alazizi

    Wayne State University, Detroit, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  5. Xiaoquan Wen

    University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  6. Derek E Wildman

    College of Public Health, University of South Florida, Tampa, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  7. Samuele Zilioli

    Wayne State University, Detroit, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  8. Richard B Slatcher

    Wayne State University, Detroit, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  9. Roger Pique-Regi

    Wayne State University, Detroit, United States
    For correspondence
    rpique@wayne.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-1262-2275
  10. Francesca Luca

    Wayne State University, Detroit, United States
    For correspondence
    fluca@wayne.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-8252-9052

Funding

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (R01HL114097)

  • Samuele Zilioli
  • Richard B Slatcher

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Human subjects: Participants were included from an ongoing longitudinal study, Asthma in the Lives of Families Today (ALOFT; recruited from November 2010-July 2018, Wayne State University Institutional Review Board approval #0412110B3F).

Copyright

© 2021, Resztak et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

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  1. Justyna A Resztak
  2. Allison K Farrell
  3. Henriette Mair-Meijers
  4. Adnan Alazizi
  5. Xiaoquan Wen
  6. Derek E Wildman
  7. Samuele Zilioli
  8. Richard B Slatcher
  9. Roger Pique-Regi
  10. Francesca Luca
(2021)
Psychosocial experiences modulate asthma-associated genes through gene-environment interactions
eLife 10:e63852.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.63852

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.63852

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