Genetic associations between autophagy genes and asthma have been observed including single nucleotide polymorphisms in Atg5 which correlate with reduced lung function.
Our results showed miR-30a were downregulated in children with asthma and ovalbumin (OVA) mouse model in parallel with the upregulation of autophagy-related proteins; moreover, we observed miR-30a inhibited the autophagy by downregulated autophagy-related 5 (ATG5).
We found variant rs12212740, an intronic SNP of ATG5, to be associated with asthma and forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV(1)) percent predicted in the French Canadian population and with FEV(1) in an American Caucasian cohort.