Surfactant protein B polymorphisms are associated with severe respiratory syncytial virus infection, but not with asthma

Background Surfactant proteins (SP) are important for the innate host defence and essential for a physiological lung function. Several linkage and association studies have investigated the genes coding for different surfactant proteins in the context of pulmonary diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or respiratory distress syndrome of preterm infants. In this study we tested whether SP-B was in association with two further pulmonary diseases in children, i. e. severe infections caused by respiratory syncytial virus and bronchial asthma.