Leveraging omic approaches to understand asthma susceptibility in admixed populations

Abstract

This doctoral thesis has addressed the potential role of biological sex and the salivary microbiome on asthma susceptibility, as well as the interplay between host genomic variation and bacterial composition of saliva in African-admixed populations (Hispanics/ Latinos and African Americans). To achieve that, we have i) explored the association of common genetic variation with asthma susceptibility using sex-interaction and sex-stratified approaches, ii) assessed the changes in the salivary microbiome related to asthma susceptibility, and iii) investigated how human genetic variation interacts with the salivary microbiome in order to determine its composition. The main findings include the identification of two genomic regions in which biological sex significantly modulates the association with asthma and additional suggestive variants that could be further explored. Moreover, changes in the salivary bacterial composition were associated with asthma susceptibility in African Americans, and several genetic variants and biological processes were linked to the relative abundance of different bacterial genera present in saliva across populations.