BACKGROUND Asthma is characterized by chronic airway inflammation, airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR), and airway remodeling. While exposure of house dust mites (HDM) is a common cause of asthma, the pathogenesis of the HDM-induced asthma is not fully understood. Bronchopulmonary C-fibers (PCFs) contribute to the neurogenic inflammation, viral infection induced-persistent AHR, and ovalbumin induc...

Sensitizations to house dust mites (HDM) trigger strong exacerbated allergen-induced inflammation of the skin and airways mucosa from atopic subjects resulting in atopic dermatitis as well as allergic rhinitis and asthma. Initially, the Th2-biased HDM allergic response was considered to be mediated only by allergen B- and T-cell epitopes to promote allergen-specific IgE production as well as IL...

BACKGROUND At present, there are no validated biomarkers reflecting or predicting the clinical efficacy of allergen-specific immunotherapy (AIT) . We aimed to investigate the correlations between clinical and immunological responses of patients undergoing house dust mite (HDM) AIT. METHODS Sixty-nine children diagnosed with HDM allergic rhinitis and/or asthma received standardized Dermatophag...

House dust mite (HDM) represents world-wide one of the most common source of aeroallergens word-wide and more than 50% of allergic patients are sensitized to these allergenic molecules. Although the induction of specificTh2 cells as well as IgE by HDM is well understood, the events that control the initial Th2 polarization in response to HDM are still poorly defined. Notably, mechanisms by whic...

The incidence of allergies and asthma has increased significantly in the past few decades. The objectives of this study were to establish an allergy model in weanling rats to more closely reflect the developing immune system of children, and to determine whether systemic administration of inactivated Bordetella pertussis could enhance pulmonary and systemic immune responses to locally administe...

We previously reported children homozygous for two MC3R sequence variants (C17A+G241A) have greater fat mass than controls. Here we show, using homozygous knock-in mouse models in which we replace murine Mc3r with wild-type human (MC3R(hWT/hWT)) and double-mutant (C17A+G241A) human (MC3R(hDM/hDM)) MC3R, that MC3R(hDM/hDM) have greater weight and fat mass, increased energy intake and feeding eff...

BACKGROUND While the presence of the chitinase-like molecule YKL40 has been reported in COPD and asthma, its relevance to inflammatory processes elicited by cigarette smoke and common environmental allergens, such as house dust mite (HDM), is not well understood. The objective of the current study was to assess expression and function of BRP-39, the murine equivalent of YKL40 in a murine model ...

Results HDM sensitization rate was higher prevalence in male than in female. Compared with non-HDM sensitization asthmatics, HDM positive asthmatics had early onset of age (D. farina, 39.0 ± 0.50 vs. 48.5 ± 0.42, p=0.001; D. pteronyssinus, 39.4 ± 0.50 vs. 48.3 ± 0.43, p=0.001). HDM positive asthmatics had shorter duration of asthma symptom than that of HDM negative asthmatics. HDM negative asth...

PURPOSE Allergen extracts from the house dust mite (HDM, Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus) are widely utilized for diagnosis and treatment of allergic diseases. It is known that allergen extracts degrade and lose potency when stored over time. METHODS This study aimed to determine the optimal conditions for stability of allergen extracts. This study was undertaken to investigate the optimal sto...