Non-eosinophilic asthma and the innate immune response

Non-eosinophilic asthma and the innate immune response.

T he concept that there may be heterogeneity of the underlying pathology of asthma has a long pedigree: 80 years ago, Rackemann suggested that a subgroup of patients with intrinsic asthma had disease driven by bacterial infection of the upper and lower respiratory tract and the authors of an early postmortem study were struck by the heterogeneity of lower airway inflammatory response in fatal a...

Pathological features and inhaled corticosteroid response of eosinophilic and non-eosinophilic asthma.

BACKGROUND Non-eosinophilic asthma is a potentially important clinicopathological phenotype since there is evidence that it responds poorly to inhaled corticosteroid therapy. However, little is known about the underlying airway immunopathology and there are no data from placebo-controlled studies examining the effect of inhaled corticosteroids. METHODS Airway immunopathology was investigated ...

Non-eosinophilic asthma: importance and possible mechanisms.

There is increasing evidence that inflammatory mechanisms other than eosinophilic inflammation may be involved in producing the final common pathway of enhanced bronchial reactivity and reversible airflow obstruction that characterises asthma. A review of the literature has shown that, at most, only 50% of asthma cases are attributable to eosinophilic airway inflammation. It is hypothesised tha...

Cyclic Dinucleotides and the Innate Immune Response

Cyclic dinucleotides (CDNs) have been previously recognized as important secondary signaling molecules in bacteria and, more recently, in mammalian cells. In the former case, they represent secondary messengers affecting numerous responses of the prokaryotic cell, whereas in the latter, they act as agonists of the innate immune response. Remarkable new discoveries have linked these two patterns...

Induction of Innate Immune Response