A novel variant of human IL-13, Gln110Arg, on chromosome 5q31, associated with asthma rather than IgE levels in case-control populations from Britain and Japan [peak odds ratio (OR) = 2.31, 95% CI 1.33-4.00]; the variant also predicted asthma and higher serum IL-13 levels in a general, Japanese paediatric population.
The present findings suggest that SJS/TEN is different from allergic diseases such as atopy and asthma because the ratio of each allele in the IL-13 SNP Arg110Gln was the opposite of the ratio in those diseases.