Prevalence of childhood asthma has worldwide increased in recent decades. Different genome-wide studies have identified more than 100 genes in 22 chromosomes which were associated with asthma. Different genetic backgrounds in different environments might modulate the susceptibility of asthma. This has been attributed to industrialized environment such as air pollution and microbial-deprivation ecology that polarize immune response towards allergy sensitization in perinatal stage. Recently, evidence has shown that allergy sensitization may occur in fetal life and influence of fetal environment may cause epigenetic programming of diseases in adults. Taken together, this suggests that childhood asthma, although heritable, is significantly affected by different environments in perinatal stage. It is hoped that clarification of the perinatal programming of childhood asthma may provide a prospect for early prediction and prevention of childhood asthma. We are interested in articles that demonstrate epidemiological aspects of perinatal programming of asthma in childhood or adulthood and explore gene-environment interaction on the programming of asthma in human cohorts or animal studies. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Fetal environment and prenatal sensitization
• Prenatal programming of asthma and/or allergic diseases
• Maternal or paternal imprint of asthma and/or allergic diseases
• Influence of environmental hormones, stress, or oxidants on the programming of asthma
• Allergic march and hygiene hypothesis of allergic diseases
• Impacts of maternal diet, breast feeding, and infant formula on allergic diseases
• Genetic and epigenetic programming of childhood asthma
• Mechanisms of persistence and remission of childhood asthma

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