Early life precursors, epigenetics, and the development of food allergy.

ABSTRACT: Food allergy (FA), a major clinical and public health concern worldwide, is caused by a complex interplay of environmental exposures, genetic variants, gene-environment interactions, and epigenetic alterations. This review summarizes recent advances surrounding these key factors, with a particular focus on the potential role of epigenetics in the development of FA. Epidemiologic studies have reported a number of nongenetic factors that may influence the risk of FA, such as timing of food introduction and feeding pattern, diet/nutrition, exposure to environmental tobacco smoking, prematurity and low birth weight, microbial exposure, and race/ethnicity. Current studies on the genetics of FA are mainly conducted using candidate gene approaches, which have linked more than 10 genes to the gene

SUBMITTER: Hong X 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3439840 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature