Variants of the FADS 1 FADS 2 Gene Cluster , Blood Levels of Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids and Eczema in Children within the First 2 Years of Life

Background: Association of genetic-variants in the FADS1-FADS2-gene-cluster with fatty-acid-composition in blood of adultpopulations is well established. We analyze this genetic-association in two children-cohort-studies. In addition, the association between variants in the FADS-gene-cluster and blood-fatty-acid-composition with eczema was studied. Methods and Principal Findings: Data of two population-based-birth-cohorts in the Netherlands and Germany (KOALA, LISA) were pooled (n = 879) and analyzed by (logistic) regression regarding the mutual influence of single-nucleotidepolymorphisms (SNPs) in the FADS-gene-cluster (rs174545, rs174546, rs174556, rs174561, rs3834458), on polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) in blood and parent-reported eczema until the age of 2 years. All SNPs were highly significantly associated with all PUFAs except for alpha-linolenic-acid and eicosapentaenoic-acid, also after correction for multiple-testing. All tested SNPs showed associations with eczema in the LISA-study, but not in the KOALA-study. None of the PUFAs was significantly associated with eczema neither in the pooled nor in the analyses stratified by study-cohort. Conclusions and Significance: PUFA-composition in young children’s blood is under strong control of the FADS-genecluster. Inconsistent results were found for a link between these genetic-variants with eczema. PUFA in blood was not associated with eczema. Thus the hypothesis of an inflammatory-link between PUFA and eczema by the metabolic-pathway of LC-PUFAs as precursors for inflammatory prostaglandins and leukotrienes could not be confirmed by these data. Citation: Rzehak P, Thijs C, Standl M, Mommers M, Glaser C, et al. (2010) Variants of the FADS1 FADS2 Gene Cluster, Blood Levels of Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids and Eczema in Children within the First 2 Years of Life. PLoS ONE 5(10): e13261. doi:10.1371/journal.pone. 0013261 Editor: Dominik Hartl, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany Received July 21, 2010; Accepted September 11, 2010; Published October 11, 2010 Copyright: 2010 Rzehak et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: The KOALA study with follow-up until age 2 years was co-sponsored by the Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development (ZonMW grants no. 2100.0090 and 912-03-031), the Netherlands Asthma Foundation (grant no. 3.2.03.48), Royal Friesland Foods, Triodos Foundation, Phoenix Foundation, Raphae Foundation, Iona Foundation, Foundation for the Advancement of Heilpedagogie, and the Netherlands Ministry of Public Health, Welfare and Sport, the Netherlands and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO Spinoza award of Prof. D.S. Postma). The LISA study was funded by grants of the Federal Ministry for Education, Science, Research and Technology (Grant No. 01 EG 9705/2 and 01EG9732). This work was partly supported by the ‘‘Kompetenznetz Adipositas (Competence Network Obesity)’’ and NGFNplus funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (FKZ: 01GI0826, 01GI0823, 01GS0820). Personal and financial support by the Munich Center of Health Sciences (MCHEALTH) as part of the Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich LMU innovative is gratefully acknowledged. Dirkje S. Postma received the NWO Spinoza award from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research. Berthold Koletzko is the recipient of a Freedom to Discover Award of the Bristol-Myers-Squibb Foundation, New York, NY, USA. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing Interests: Royal Friesland Foods has financially contributed to the infrastructure of the KOALA study as a co-sponsor. Data and intellectual property rights are wholly owned by the researchers. None of the authors have financial, professional or personal interests related to this sponsoring. Royal Friesland Foods had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to all the PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. * E-mail: peter.rzehak@helmholtz-muenchen.de " For a list of study group members, see the Acknowledgments. PLoS ONE | www.plosone. org 1 October 2010 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | e13261