in asthmatic subjects there is a pronounced diurnal variation in bronchial responsiveness. if this phenomenon is due to variation in factors that control drug delivery, then it should be paralleled by a similar variation in competitive antagonist blockade. in order to study this possibility, we performed the methacholine challenge test and after 45 minutes, administered atropine by inhalation. ...

BACKGROUND Airway remodeling is a repair process that occurs after injury resulting in increased airway hyper-responsiveness in asthma. Thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP), a vital cytokine, plays a critical role in orchestrating, perpetuating and amplifying the inflammatory response in asthma. TSLP is also a critical factor in airway remodeling in asthma. OBJECTIVES To examine the role of TS...

BACKGROUND The prevalence of asthma and bronchial hyper-responsiveness is greater in elite athletes than in the general population, and its association with mild airway inflammation has recently been reported. OBJECTIVE To study the relationship between the type of sport practised at the highest levels of competition (on land or in water) and sputum induction cell counts in a group of healthy...

Stromal cell-derived factor-1alpha/beta (SDF-1alpha/beta) is phylogenetically a primitive chemokine widely expressed in a variety of tissues and cell types. This expression is detectable in the absence of stimuli provided by bacterial or viral infections and allergic or autoimmune disorders. Based on these and other findings, SDF-1alpha has not been considered an inflammatory chemokine, but, ra...

Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF), an inflammatory cytokine, has a potentially important role in the pathogenesis of bronchial asthma and may contribute to airway hyper-responsiveness. Recent evidence has revealed that TNF can increase the Ca(2+) sensitivity of agonist-stimulated myosin light chain(20) (MLC(20)) phosphorylation and contractility in guinea pig airway smooth muscle (ASM). In the ...

Phosphodiesterases (PDE) hydrolyse intracellular cAMP and cGMP to inactive 5' monophosphates. Decreased level of cAMP is involved in the pathogenesis of asthma. We and others have shown that phosphodiesterases were upregulated in the lung of allergic rats, and Bacilli Calmette-Guérin (BCG) induced the production of cAMP in vitro. However, it is unclear how BCG's effect asthma and whether it is ...

Abstract Innate lymphoid cells (ILCs) are a relatively recently identified class of specialized innate-like lymphocytes that the topic intense investigation for their role in immune function during homeostasis and disease states. Accumulating evidence suggests dysregulation ILC2s ILC2-derived Type II cytokines plays critical development allergic airway hyper-responsiveness asthma. To test how p...

Bronchial asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the airways, characterized by airway eosinophilia, goblet cell hyperplasia with mucus hyper-secretion, and hyper-responsiveness to inhaled allergens and to non-specific stimuli. Eosinophil accumulation and subsequent activation in bronchial tissues play critical roles in the pathophysiology of bronchial asthma. Many inflammatory mediators at...