Of the three genes, ORMDL3 has been singled out as the best candidate for explaining the link between the 17q21 alleles and asthma due to its strong and highly reproducible eQTL, higher expression levels in asthmatic subjects and its role in sphingolipid metabolism, which has recently come to the fore as a significant modulator of lung hypersensitivity and inflammatory responses [14, 15]. Here, ORMDL3 is linked to asthma.