ABSTRACT
Asthma is a genetically complex disease, caused by multiple genes and mul-
tiple environmental factors that may interact. Epidemiological studies have
provided suggestive evidence for many environmental factors that may con-
tribute to the development of asthma, e.g., indoor and outdoor pollution, allergen exposure, tobacco smoke, and other factors related to the ‘‘Western
lifestyle’’ such as contact with microbial products and infections (1,2). The
approach to detect, which genetic factors contribute to, asthma is exten-
sively reviewed in this book in Chapters 5, 12, 14, and 15. This chapter focuses
on the interaction of variations in the genome and environmental expo-
sures. We will review epidemiological and genetic evidence that addresses
gene-environment interaction in asthma (Table 1).
