Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Identifier

1066

Date

2014

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Public Health

Major

Public Health

Concentration

Epidemiology

Committee Chair

Karmaus Wilfried

Committee Member

Hongmei Zhang

Committee Member

Vikki G Nolan

Abstract

Prevalence of asthma is higher in boys than girls before puberty, while a shift between the genders is found after the puberty. However, the actual mechanism behind this gender shift is not yet clear. We hypothesize that, in girls, oral contraceptive pill (OCP) use and age at menarche modify the effect of GATA3 polymorphisms on the risk of asthma at age 18 via DNA methylation. Blood samples were collected at age 18 years from 245 female participants randomly selected for methylation analysis from the Isle of Wight birth cohort, UK. In the first stage, OCP use and age at menarche in interaction with rs1269486 were significantly associated with differential methylation of cg17124583, which in a second stage, susequently modified the association of rs422628 with the risk for asthma at age 18 years. A two-stage model consisting of genetic variants in the GATA3 gene, OCP use, age at menarche, and DNA methylation may explain how female sex hormones can be linked to explain the gender differences in asthma before and after puberty.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to the local University of Memphis Electronic Theses & dissertation (ETD) Repository.

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