In what is believed to be the first genome–wide association study to examine sexually dimorphic risk factors for COPD, researchers analyzed over eight million single–nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPS) in 6,260 COPD patients and 5,269 controls who smoked.

In the March issue of the American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology, the authors report that the SNP rs9615358 in the fetal lung development gene CELSR1 appears more common in women (OR 1.37) than men (OR 0.90).

This finding, along with other study findings, suggests that CELSR1 “may play a role in sexually dimorphic COPD susceptibility, and suggest that this susceptibility may have developmental origins.”

The article is titled, “Sex–based Genetic Association Study Identifies CELSR1 as a Possible COPD Risk Locus among Women.”