allergic asthma is a multifactorial disease, influenced by genetic and environmental factors. recent family-based studies have revealed evidence for linkage of human chromosomes 5q31-33, 12q15-24, 11q13 and 15q23.6 as regions likely to contain genes related to asthma. among the candidate genes in these regions are the genes encoding for human interleukin-4, interleukin-13 and interleukin-16. to...

Rationale: Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease characterized by increased airway inflammation and fibrosis. So far, endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress has been shown to play a role in several inflammatory diseases, however, its involvement in the pathogenesis of allergic asthma has not been clearly understood. It is also known that ER stress inhibitor chemical chaperone tauroursodeoxycholic...

interleukin (il)-35 is a newly discovered suppressive cytokine and has been shown to alleviate  inflammatory  and  autoimmune  diseases.  the  purpose  of  this  study  was  to investigate immunomodulatory capacity of il-35 in patients with allergic asthma.il-35 mrna expression levels in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (pbmcs) were detected  by  quantitative  real-time  pcr  (qpcr).  the  fr...

BACKGROUND This paper reviews the current evidence indicating that comorbid allergic rhinitis may have clinically relevant effects on asthma. DISCUSSION Allergic rhinitis is very common in patients with asthma, with a reported prevalence of up to 100% in those with allergic asthma. While the temporal relation of allergic rhinitis and asthma diagnoses can be variable, the diagnosis of allergic...

BACKGROUND 20-30% of patients with asthma have neutrophilic airway inflammation and reduced responsiveness to steroid therapy. They often have chronic airway bacterial colonisation and Haemophilus influenzae is one of the most commonly isolated bacteria. The relationship between chronic airway colonisation and the development of steroid-resistant neutrophilic asthma is unclear. OBJECTIVES To ...

BACKGROUND Rhinovirus infection or dsRNA stimulation increased thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP), an upstream pro-allergic cytokine, in asthmatic bronchial epithelial cells. We hypothesized that dsRNA challenges superimposed on established experimental allergic asthma constitute a useful exacerbation model. We further hypothesized that TSLP is induced at dsRNA- and rhinoviral infection-induce...

RATIONALE Aeroallergen sensitization and virus-induced wheezing are risk factors for asthma development during early childhood, but the temporal developmental sequence between them is incompletely understood. OBJECTIVE To define the developmental relationship between aeroallergen sensitization and virus-induced wheezing. METHODS A total of 285 children at high risk for allergic disease and ...

Exacerbations of asthma are most commonly triggered by viral infections, which amplify allergic inflammation. Cytokines released by virus-infected AECs may be important in driving this response. This review focuses on accumulating evidence in support of a role for epithelial cytokines, including IL-33, IL-25, and TSLP, as well as their targets, type 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILC2s), in the patho...

BACKGROUND The diverse roles of innate immune cells in the pathogenesis of asthma remain to be fully defined. Natural killer (NK) cells are innate lymphocytes that can regulate adaptive immune responses. NK cells are activated in asthma; however, their role in allergic airway inflammation is not fully understood. OBJECTIVE We investigated the importance of NK cells in house dust mite (HDM)-tr...