Several lung diseases including asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) involve chronic inflammation of the airways. Therefore, there is great interest in non-invasive methods assessing airway inflammation. Measurement of bronchial hyper-responsiveness (BHR) and exhaled nitric oxide (NO) are such indirect markers of airway inflammation. Additional information about severity of d...

Twenty years ago, the prevalence of atopic sensitization and bronchial hyper-responsiveness (BHR) in Xhosa children in a rural location in South Africa was very low. The aim of this study was to document the current prevalence of these two indices by comparing traditional rural Xhosa children, recently urbanized Xhosa children and established city white children, and to consider factors that ma...

Bronchial asthma is a disease characterized by the condition of airway hyper-responsiveness, which serves to produce narrowing of the airway secondary to airway inflammation and/or various spasm-inducing stimulus. Nonspecific bronchoprovocation testing is an important method implemented for the purpose of diagnosing asthma; this test measures the actual degree of airway hyper-responsiveness and...

BACKGROUND An increasing prevalence of allergic diseases, such as atopic dermatitis, allergic rhinitis and bronchial asthma, has been noted worldwide. Allergic asthma strongly correlates with airway inflammation caused by the unregulated production of cytokines secreted by allergen-specific type-2 T helper (Th2) cells. This study aims to explore the therapeutic effect of the airway gene transfe...

Nitric oxide (NO) is an important endogenous mediator involved in many biological functions in both physiological and pathological conditions. Many of studies suggest that high level of NO may play a role in the pathogenesis of various diseases including respiratory diseases with bronchial hyper-reactivity (BHR). The aim of our study was to examine the relationship between NO production and BHR...

Airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) and inflammation are key pathophysiological features of asthma. Enhanced contraction of bronchial smooth muscle (BSM) is one of the causes of the AHR. It is thus important for development of asthma therapy to understand the change in the contractile signaling of airway smooth muscle cells associated with the AHR. In addition to the Ca2+-mediated phosphorylation ...

The relationship between CD4(+) T cell-mediated airway eosinophilic inflammation and bronchial hyper-responsiveness (BHR) was investigated. Ovalbumin-reactive T(h)0 clones were adoptively transferred to unprimed BALB/c mice and then the mice were challenged by inhalation of the relevant antigen. Upon antigen provocation, infused T(h) clones infiltrated into the airways, followed by the accumula...

Bronchial asthma is a chronic debilitating disease, which in its severe forms can even threaten life. It is, in general, characterized by both broncho-constriction and airway inflammation which leads to bronchial hyper responsiveness [1]. Although different classes of drugs have been employed, methylxanthines continue to enjoy significant status as drugs of choice in asthma therapy, despite a n...

Hyper-IgE syndrome (HIES) is a primary immunodeficiency characterized by atopic manifestations and susceptibility to infections with extracellular pathogens, typically Staphylococcus aureus, which preferentially affect the skin and lung. Previous studies reported the defective differentiation of T helper 17 (Th17) cells in HIES patients caused by hypomorphic STAT3 mutations. However, the appare...

BACKGROUND Bronchial asthma is a chronic airway inflammatory disease that involves T lymphocytes. METHODS In order to explore the effect of Lactobacillus salivarius on Th1/Th2 cytokines and the number of spleen CD4(+) CD25(+) Foxp3(+) Treg in asthma Balb/c mouse, we constructed acute asthma model with ovalbumin to observe the mouse behavior change in Balb/c mice. The expression of GATA-3 mRNA...