Proprotein Convertase Subtilisin/Kexin Type 6: A Risk Factor for Survival in Pulmonary Fibrosis?

Yang et al discuss the study by Oldham and colleagues which report the results of a two-stage, multicenter, international genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of transplant-free survival. Using a staged analysis approach, the authors identified four genetic variants associated with transplant-free survival, with consistent effect direction in the two stages of genetic association analyses. They comment that this is an important study that identified a novel risk variant that appears to affect survival and a protein that may become another important therapeutic target in this devastating and largely untreatable disease. However, there are also a number of unanswered questions that will require further investigation.