Kim KW, Kim DY, Yoon D, et al. - This study was carried out to distinguish susceptibility loci by performing the first genome-wide association studies (GWASs) of asthma in Korean children with persistent asthma. Researchers enrolled a discovery set of 741 children with persistent asthma as cases and 589 healthy children and 551 healthy adults as controls to perform a GWAS. They further evaluated proteins of genes associated with asthma. As per the findings, GWAS of persistent childhood asthma with allergic sensitization distinguished a new susceptibility gene, TNFSF 15, and replicated relationships at the 17q12-21 childhood-onset asthma locus. The results demonstrate that this novel relationship may be mediated by decreased expression of serum TNFSF15 and loss of suppression of angiogenesis.