@TheKingofFIghters Yes, I've seen that study, and I know about fatty acid desaturases. Actually,
Hagenaars et al. did find a small association between the FADS cluster and M.P.B.
CHR SNP Position Effect allele Other allele Beta SE P MAF N_SNPs_in_cluster Range KB_range Genes_within_range
11 rs174581 61606683 A G -0.04 0.006 1.05E-08 0.36 57 chr11:61543499..61624181 80.683 [FADS1,FADS2,FEN1,MYRF,TMEM258]
rs174581 is in very high
LD (R^2 = 0.9568) with rs174537. rs174581 = A (slightly protective against M.P.B) is correlated with rs174537 = T, which is associated with greater methylation around FADS1/FADS2 and lower apparent activity of both enzymes (higher DGLA/AA ratio, higher LA/GLA ratio) in the liver, with the effect on FADS1 maybe being stronger (
Howard et al.). rs174581 = A is also correlated with rs174601 = C (R^2 = 0.8576), which is associated most prominently with higher levels of DGLA in red blood cells (
Tintle et al., Supp. Table 3). Of course, FADS1 and FADS2 are also expressed locally in hair follicles, and effects of the FADS SNPs there are hard to predict. The M.P.B-associated SNP is not in strong LD (R^2 = 0.4) with the asthma-associated FADS SNPs. It's a minor locus, but is the only vaguely prostaglandin-related gene associated with M.P.B to date (out of 115 or so).
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I'm not sure what to make of microarray results anymore - they're so inconsistent from one study to another. Garza et al. for example found no difference in FADS2 expression between bald and haired scalp (bald/haired median fold change = 0.94). Maybe the sample sizes are too small.
