Molecular interaction network and pathway studies of ADAM33 potentially relevant to asthma

Abstract

Background: Asthma is a complex disease caused by gene–gene, gene–protein and protein–protein interactions and the influence of environment, which plays a significant role in causing asthma pathogenesis. ADAM33 is known to be an important gene involved in asthma pathogenesis. No one single gene is a causal factor of asthma; rather, asthma is caused by a complex interaction of multiple genes having pathogenetic and protective effects. Objective: To identify and understand the interacting genes and proteins of ADAM33. Methods: The Ingenuity Pathway Analysis and GeneMANIA tools and a literature survey were used to identify the interacting candidates of ADAM33 and the WEB-based GEne SeT AnaLysis Toolkit was used to perform enrichment analysis of the proteins identified. Results: Keeping ADAM33 as a major hub, the authors identified some proteins whose interaction with ADAM33 had been associated with asthma and they recognized some proteins, such as amyloid β (A4) precursor protein, ataxin-7, α₄-integrin, α₅-integrin, α₉-integrin, tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-4 and ubiquilin-4, that had not been previously associated with asthma. Conclusion: The proteins identified in this study were enriched for various mechanisms that are involved in airway hyperresponsiveness, and through the interaction with ADAM33, they may have potential relevance in asthma.