Application of Functional Genomics to Bronchial Asthma

Bronchial asthma is a complicated and diverse disorder affected by genetic and environmental factors. It is widely accepted that it is a Th2-type inflammation originating in lung and caused by inhalation of ubiquitous allergens. The complicated and diverse pathogenesis of this disease is yet to be clarified. Functional genomics is the analysis of whole gene expression profiling under given condition, and microarray technology is now the most powerful tool for functional genomics. Several attempts to clarify the pathogenesis of bronchial asthma have been carried out using microarray technology, providing us some novel pathogenic mechanisms of bronchial asthma as well as the information of gene expression profiling. In this article, we review the outcomes of these analyses by the microarray approach as applied to bronchial asthma.