OBJECTIVE The goal was to estimate the burden of allergic diseases associated with chlorinated pool exposure among adolescents. METHODS We examined 847 students, 13 to 18 years of age, who had attended outdoor or indoor chlorinated pools at various rates. Of them, 114 had attended mainly a copper-silver pool and served as a reference group. We measured total and aeroallergen-specific immunogl...

Allergic asthma is associated with a pulmonary recruitment of Th type 2 cells, basophils, and eosinophils, mainly linked to chemokine production. CCL18 is a chemokine preferentially expressed in the lung, secreted by APCs, induced by Th2-type cytokines, and only present in humans. Therefore, CCL18 may be involved in allergic asthma. PBMC from asthmatics allergic to house dust mite cultured in t...

Background : Allergic asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of airway that often determined with degrees of inflammation, hypersensitivity, bronchial constriction and airway changes. Th1, Th2 and Th17 cells are the main cells involved in the pathophysiology of asthma. . Therefore, this study evaluated Th1, Th2, and Th17 cells functions by assessment the expression of INF-g, IL-4, and IL-17 g...

Deficient production of anti-viral interferons (IFNs) may be involved in causing viral-induced asthma exacerbations. Hence, drugs inducing lung IFN production would be warranted. Azithromycin may reduce asthma exacerbations but its modus operandi is unknown. Here, we investigated if azithromycin induces IFNβ expression in vitro in rhinovirus-infected bronchial epithelial cells from asthmatic do...

The prevalence of asthma and allergic diseases in childhood has increased in several industrialized countries since the second half of the twentieth century. In some countries, the prevalence is still rising, although in others it seems to have plateaued or even decreased. It has been suggested that environmental factors operating prenatally and in early life affect the development of asthma an...

Chronic allergic asthma is characterized by Th2-typed inflammation, and contributes to airway remodeling and the deterioration of lung function. However, the initiating factor that links airway inflammation to remodeling is unknown. Thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP), an epithelium-derived cytokine, can strongly activate lung dendritic cells (DCs) through the TSLP-TSLPR and OX40L-OX40 signalin...

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), an RNA virus in the family Paramyxoviridae, causes respiratory disease in humans. A closely related bovine RSV is responsible for a remarkably similar disease syndrome in young cattle. Severe RSV disease is characterized by bronchiolitis. The impact of RSV on human health is demonstrated annually when infants are admitted to the hospital in large numbers. Near...

BACKGROUND Connexin (Cx)-based gap junction channels play important roles in the inflammatory response. Cx43 is involved in the pathogenesis of some lung diseases such as acute lung injury. However, the Cx43 expression in asthma is unclear. In the present study, we used a murine model of ovalbumin (OVA)-induced allergic airway disease to examine the levels of Cx43 and analyze the relationship b...

BACKGROUND TGF-beta has been postulated to play an important role in the maintenance of epithelial homeostasis and the development of epithelium-derived cancers. However, most of previous studies are mainly focused on the function of TGF-beta in immune cells to the development of allergic asthma and how TGF-beta signaling in airway epithelium itself in allergic inflammation is largely unknown. ...

Omalizumab is a humanized monoclonal anti-IgE antibody recently approved for the treatment of severe allergic asthma. This drug inhibits allergic responses by binding to serum IgE, thus preventing interaction with cellular IgE receptors. Omalizumab is also capable of downregulating the expression of high affinity IgE receptors on inflammatory cells, as well as the numbers of eosinophils in both...