In a cohort of well-characterized COPD subjects, we integrated genomewide SNP and gene expression data derived from induced sputum, a biologically-relevant tissue in COPD, to identify a set of eQTL SNPs affecting gene expression levels. The SNPs were then tested for association with the clinical phenotype of COPD; gene expression was not tested for association with disease status in this set of COPD cases only. Using the eQTL results, we implicated two distinct COPD susceptibility genes in a previously identified region of chromosome 15q25. Additionally, we provide evidence for a potential novel COPD susceptibility locus in the HLA region on chromosome 6.
