Genetic variation in the Toll-like receptor signaling pathway is associated with childhood asthma

SNP rs1059703 in IRAK1 exhibits one of the strongest P values (.0063) and a high OR (1.423) for asthma. Because all known IRAK1 SNPs localize in a single linkage disequilibrium block, the effect of this gene during multiple testing correction and ranking might have been inflated (see Fig E3). TLR3 ligands led to production of IL-10 and IL-15, and TLR4 stimulation showed a significant overlap with both TLR2 and TLR3 effects.9 These patterns in cytokine production correlate with the overlap of the signaling pathways used by these receptors. [...]together with previous results, our findings suggest that different TLR signaling mechanisms might be involved in the pathogenesis of atopic and nonatopic asthma.