Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci (2015) 4(6): 317-325 317 Original Research Article Genetic Basis of Childhood Asthma in Saudi Arabia Adnan A. Alsulaimani 1 , Nabil S. Awad 2 , and Adel E. El-Tarras 3,4* 1 College of Medicine, Taif University, Taif, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia 2 Department of Genetics, Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Aswan University, Egypt 3 Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering Unit, Scientific Research Deanship, Taif University, Saudi Arabia 4 Genetics Dep., Faculty of Agriculture, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt *Corresponding author ABSTRACT Introduction Asthma is the most common chronic disease in childhoods. Asthma is affecting approximately 300 million individuals worldwide. It is a chronic inflammatory disorder of the airway with associated bronchoconstriction leading to airflow obstruction (Ho, 2010). Asthma is main reason of chronic illness in children and, for unknown reasons, is progressively increasing (Galassi et al., 2006; Bateman and Jithoo 2007; Pearce et al., 2007). An increase in both the prevalence and morbidity of asthma, especially in children younger than 6 years was recorded. Newacheck and Halfon (2000) and Al- Dawood (2002) reported that bronchial asthma (BA) during childhood is considered to have been the single most prevalent cause of childhood disability. In Saudi Arabia, asthma is a common chronic illness (Al- Moamary et al., 2009). Saudi Arabia is considered one of the countries that have ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 4 Number 6 (2015) pp. 317-325 http://www.ijcmas.com Asthma is one of the most common chronic illnesses in Saudi Arabia and showed regional diversity. Suggestive susceptibility genes have been identified in European and American populations but not yet in Middle East including Saudi Arabia. CD14 (cluster of differentiation 14) gene is one of many genes that appear to contribute to the expression of allergic phenotype. The present study was carried out to determine the prevalence of some CD14 promoter polymorphisms in childhood asthmatic patients in Saudi Arabia. Polymerase Chain Reaction and Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism technique was adopted with 42 childhood asthmatic patients. C(-159)T, A(-1,145)G and G(-1,395)T polymorphisms of CD14 gene were genotyped. The prevalence of studied polymorphisms was 50%, 45.2% and 42.8%, respectively. In conclusion, high prevalence of studied polymorphisms C(-159)T, A(-1,145)G and G(-1,395)T was observed in tested Saudi asthmatic childhood patients. Keywords Asthma, Childhood Asthma, CD14 gene Saudi Arabia