PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Rhea Powell
AU  - Duncan Davidson
AU  - Divers Jasmin
AU  - J. Jeffrey Carr
AU  - Robert Detrano
AU  - Eric Hoffman
AU  - Rui Jiang
AU  - Richard Kronmal
AU  - Kiang Liu
AU  - Naresh Punjabi
AU  - Eyal Shahar
AU  - Kent Taylor
AU  - Karol Watson
AU  - Jerome Rotter
AU  - Stephen Rich
AU  - R. Graham Barr
TI  - Does genetic ancestry modify the relationship of smoking and lung function? The MESA lung study
DP  - 2011 Sep 01
TA  - European Respiratory Journal
PG  - p997
VI  - 38
IP  - Suppl 55
4099  - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/38/Suppl_55/p997.short
4100  - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/38/Suppl_55/p997.full
SO  - Eur Respir J2011 Sep 01; 38
AB  - Introduction: Smoking is a risk factor for COPD but little is known about whether this risk differs by genetic ancestry. The few prior studies rely on self-reported race/ethnicity.Objectives: To test the hypothesis that genetic ancestry modifies the association of smoking and lung function.Methods: The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA) is a population-based study of adults without clinical cardiovascular disease in the United States. Principal components (PC) of ancestry were derived from genome-wide data (Affymetrix 6.0) in MESA. Spirometry was measured by ATS/ERS guidelines. We tested the interaction of PCs with packyears of smoking on FEV1 stratified by gender and adjusted for age, height, and current smoking.Results: Of 3229 participants, self-reported race/ethnicity was 35% white, 26% African-American, 22% Hispanic and 17% Chinese; 49% had ever smoked (median packyears 17; IQR, 6, 36). Models with PC and self-reported race/ethnicity explained the variance in FEV1 equally well (R2=0.59); however adjustment for PCs rendered self-reported race/ethnicity non-significant. Packyears were associated with lower FEV1 in all groups (p<0.001). In women, PCs did not modify the relationship of packyears to FEV1 (p=0.86). In men, the relationship was modified by PCs (p=0.01), specifically PC2 (tracking Asian ancestry) was associated with less of a decrement in FEV1 per packyears smoking (p=0.001).Conclusions: Variation between European and African genetic ancestry did not modify the relationship between smoking and lung function in either gender, but this relationship may be modified by Asian ancestry in men.Funding: NIH: R01-HL077612, RC1-HL100543, N01-HC95159-169, N02-HL64278.