| Title: |
Meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies of food allergy and IgE-sensitization |
| Authors: |
Maier, Lisa; Sun, Yidan; Kronberg, Jaanika; Abner, Erik; Coley, Kayesha; Marenholz, Ingo; Weiss, Stefan; Foraita, Ronja; Karramass, Tarik; Mykkänen, Juha; Hernandez-Pacheco, Natalia; Wang, Carol A.; Kitaba, Negusse T.; Pechlivanis, Sonali; Bouzigon, Emmanuelle; Tingskov Pedersen, Casper E.; Schoos, Ann-Marie M.; Curtin, John; Kress, Sara; Hernangomez-Laderas, Alba; Foppiano, Francesco; Ashley, Sarah; Batini, Chiara; Bryant, Luke; Homuth, Georg; Gieger, Christian; Gilles, Stefanie; Lyytikäinen, Leo-Pekka; Rovio, Suvi; Pahkala, Katja; Vernet, Raphaël; Valenta, Rudolph; Llop, Sabrina; Torrent, Maties; Böck, Andreas; Tang, Mimi L.K.; Schmidt-Weber, Carsten B.; Metspalu, Andres; Esko, Tõnu; Sprikkelman, Aline B.; John, Catherine; Lee, Young-Ae; Beyer, Kirsten; Völzke, Henry; Pigeot, Iris; Traidl-Hoffmann, Claudia; Duijts, Liesbeth; Lu, Haojie; Raitakari, Olli T.; Holloway, John W. |
| Publication Year: |
2026 |
| Collection: |
University of Southampton: e-Prints Soton |
| Description: |
Background: food allergies (FA) arise from a complex interplay between an individual’s genetic predisposition and environmental factors and their prevalence is increasing. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) to date have been hindered by small sample sizes and varying FA definitions. Objective: identify novel food allergy risk loci by conducting a GWAS meta-analysis in children and adults using a multi-phenotype approach to ensure the trade-off between sufficient sample size and valid FA definitions. Methods: analyses were conducted separately in children and adults based on the following FA phenotypes: self-report, doctors-diagnosis, food-specific sensitization, and doctors-diagnosis plus food-specific sensitization. GWAS from up to 16 cohorts of European ancestry including 229,426 adults and 14,234 children were meta-analyzed. Models were adjusted for sex, age, principal components, and if applicable, further study-specific confounders. Sensitivity models were additionally adjusted for hay fever. Replication was conducted in additional external cohorts and a validation in oral food challenge-defined FA cases. Results: 37 SNPs met suggestive significance (p-value < 1x10-6), with two reaching genome-wide significance: rs116936231 (FGL1) in adult doctors-diagnosed FA plus food-specific sensitization phenotype (stable after additional hay fever adjustment) and rs8022829 (AKAP6-NPAS3) which was significant only in the hay fever-adjusted model in adults. However, neither variant was validated. Further, we identified three SNPs previously reported for FA and atopic diseases. Conclusion: this study identified 37 SNPs suggestively associated with FA and demonstrated genetic differences across phenotypes. It highlights the need for a unified FA definition and sheds light on its shared genetic architecture with allergies. |
| Document Type: |
article in journal/newspaper |
| File Description: |
text |
| Language: |
English |
| Relation: |
https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/510222/1/manuscript_JACI-D-25-01147_revision3_clean.docx; https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/510222/2/1-s2.0-S009167492600093X-main.pdf; Maier, Lisa, Sun, Yidan and Kronberg, Jaanika , the Estonian Biobank Research Team (2026) Meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies of food allergy and IgE-sensitization. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. (doi:10.1016/j.jaci.2026.02.012 ). |
| Availability: |
https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/510222/ |
| Rights: |
cc_by_nc_4 |
| Accession Number: |
edsbas.792EFA89 |
| Database: |
BASE |