The case for GSDMA as the susceptibility gene underlying the 17q GWAS signal is supported by biologic plausibility. GSDMA is a member of the gasdermin family of proteins first identified in the mouse [39]. They have been reported as being expressed in the upper gastrointestinal tract and skin where they are involved in the regulation of apoptosis and act as tumor suppressors [40]. Further support for GSDMA as an asthma susceptibility gene is our observation that GSDMA is robustly expressed in human airway epithelium (Figure 3). In addition its network neighborhood is enriched in genes involved in immune responses. We examined the genes around GSDMA using Bayesian and co-expression networks, and performed functional annotation of these genes (Table S4a–S4b). The GSDMA network neighborhood is enriched for a number of immune response pathways, which are highly relevant to asthma.
