these loci harbor a number of genes that could potentially explain these hits10,11. Following the workflow shown in Figure S4 [27], we drew inference on causal genes underlying asthma GWAS signals on these two chromosomes (Table 4). Clearly IL1RL1's subnetwork is enriched for canonical asthma genes (P = 1.8×10−07) making it the most likely gene driving the asthma association on 2q12. The result for 17q21 is less clear, but still points away from ORMDL3, the gene first suggested as causal by Moffatt et al. [10]. The sub-network around GSDMA is significantly enriched for canonical genes (P = 0.005) suggesting that GSDMA is the most likely driver behind the asthma association on 17q21.
