Genomics of Lung Function

Lung function is a gold standard to diagnose Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), which is one of the leading causes of mortality in the world. Risk factors for COPD can cause one or more abnormal patterns of lung function, especially, environmental risk factors, like tobacco smoking, air pollutants, biomass fuel among which smoking is the primary risk factor but it is known that only 15-20% smokers develop COPD. With the advent of genomewide association studies, several genetic variants related to lung function like HHIP, HTR4, ADAM19, GPR126, and CHRNA3/5 have been discovered and replicated indicating their potential biological role in determining lung volumes. In this review, we have discussed about the latest developments in genomics of lung function.