Populations worldwide have been increasingly affected by allergic rhinitis associated with pollen allergens. Alterations in the geographical distribution of pollinating flora resulting from climatic changes and increased production of pollens caused by higher atmospheric CO 2 , have changed the environment in which humans reside. This study, carried out in Lithuania, aimed to demonstrate how people with pollen allergy are affected by symptoms associated with changing pollen loads and to evaluate the resultant changes in human quality of life. This study assessed pollen loads in Lithuania during 2013-2014. Skin prick tests were carried out on 665 individuals aiming to evaluate sensitivity to pollen allergens. Selfreports on symptoms and their impact on quality of life were collected from each study subject. There were 249 to 429 differences in inter-annual peaks of Betula pollen concentrations, while differences of plant pollen concentrations of the other genus/families varied from 1.5 to 92 % on peak days. Positive reactions to pollen allergens were reported in 54 % of the study subjects; 90 % of these subjects had been continuously suffering from moderate-to-severe symptoms of allergic rhinitis. The most frequently reported symptoms were sneezing (99 %), runny nose (98 %) and stuffy nose (97 %). The dominant group of subjects reported symptoms during the entire period of vegetation (7 months). This study demonstrated that people with pollen allergies have attributed symptomassociated worsening of their quality of life to the typical periods of unavoidable exposure and have made only minimal changes in their lifestyle during the season of pollen load.

Allergic rhinitis (AR) is a common and complex disease. It is associated with environmental as well as genetic factors. Three recent genome-wide association studies (GWAS) reported altogether 47 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with AR or allergic sensitization (AS) in Europeans and North Americans. Two follow up studies in Swedish and Chinese replicated 15 associations. In these studies individuals were selected based on the self-reported AR, or AR/AS diagnosed using blood IgE test or skin prick test (SPT), which were performed often without restriction to specific allergens. Here we performed third replication study in Lithuanians. We used SPT and carefully selected set of allergens prevalent in Lithuania, as well as Illumina Core Exome chip for SNP detection. We genotyped 270 SPT-positive individuals (137 Betulaceae -, 174 Poaceae-, 199 Artemisia-, 70 Helianthus-, 22 Alternaria-, 22 Cladosporium-, 140 mites-, 95 cat- and 97 dog dander-sensitive cases) and 162 SPT-negative controls. We found altogether 13 known SNPs associated with AS (p ≤0.05). Three SNPs were found in Lithuanians sensitive to several allergens, and 10 SNPs were found in Lithuanians sensitive to a certain allergen. For the first time, SNP rs7775228:C was associated with patient sensitivity to dog allergens (F_A=0,269, F_U=0.180, P=0.008). Thus, careful assessment of AS allowed us to detect known genetic variants associated with AS/AR in relatively small cohort of Lithuanians.

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