Omics approaches in asthma research: Challenges and opportunities

Abstract

Asthma, a chronic respiratory disease with a global prevalence of approximately 300 million individuals, presents a significant societal and economic burden. This multifaceted syndrome exhibits diverse clinical phenotypes and pathogenic endotypes influenced by various factors. The advent of omics technologies has revolutionized asthma research by delving into the molecular foundation of the disease to unravel its underlying mechanisms. Omics technologies are employed to systematically screen for potential biomarkers, encompassing genes, transcripts, methylation sites, proteins, and even the microbiome components. This review provides an insightful overview of omics applications in asthma research, with a special emphasis on genetics, transcriptomics, epigenomics, and the microbiome. We explore the cutting-edge methods, discoveries, challenges, and potential future directions in the realm of asthma omics research. By integrating multi-omics and non-omics data through advanced statistical techniques, we aspire to advance precision medicine in asthma, guiding diagnosis, risk assessment, and personalized treatment strategies for this heterogeneous condition.

Keywords: Asthma; Epigenomics; Genomics; Metagenomics; Multi-omics integration; Transcriptomics.

Fig. 1

Overview of multi-omics in asthma, which aids in assessing the risk of asthma, defining endotypes, and predicting responses to specific treatments. Figure was created with Biorender.com.

Fig. 2

Multi-omics integration enables a comprehensive understanding of asthma. Figure was created with Biorender.com. eQTL: Expression quantitative trait loci; eQTM: Expression quantitative trait methylation; EWAS: Epigenome-wide association study; GWAS: Genome-wide association study; mQTL: Methylation quantitative trait loci; SNP: Single-nucleotide polymorphism; TWAS: Transcriptome-wide association study.