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Updated: Oct 14, 2025

Murine Model of Allergen Induced Asthma
Published on: May 14, 2012
Characterisation of insomnia as an environmental risk factor for asthma via Mendelian randomization and gene
Dong Jun Kim1, Tae-Woong Ha2, Hae Un Jung1
1Department of Biomedical Science, Graduate School, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, South Korea.
Abstract:
Asthma is a complex disease that is reportedly associated with insomnia. However, the causal directionality of this association is still unclear. We used asthma and insomnia-associated single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and genome-wide association study (GWAS) summary statistics to test the causal directionality between insomnia and asthma via Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis. We also performed a cross-trait meta-analysis using UK Biobank GWAS summary statistics and a gene-environment interaction study using data from UK Biobank. The interaction of genetic risk score for asthma (GRSasthma) with insomnia on asthma was tested by logistic regression. Insomnia was a risk factor for the incidence of asthma, as revealed by three different methods of MR analysis. However, asthma did not act as a risk factor for insomnia. The cross-trait meta-analysis identified 28 genetic loci shared between asthma and insomnia. In the gene-environment interaction study, GRSasthma interacted with insomnia to significantly affect the risk of asthma. The results of this study highlight the importance of insomnia as a risk factor of asthma, and warrant further analysis of the mechanism through which insomnia affects the risk of asthma.
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