Microbial products serving as superantigens (SAgs) have been implicated in triggering various T cell-mediated chronic inflammatory disorders, including severe asthma. Given earlier evidence demonstrating that airway smooth muscle (ASM) cells express MHC class II molecules, we investigated whether ASM can present SAg to resting CD4(+) T cells, and further examined whether this action reciprocall...

OBJECTIVE To define the mechanism associated with abnormal septal motion (ASM) after coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) using comprehensive MR imaging techniques. MATERIALS AND METHODS Eighteen patients (mean age, 58 ± 12 years; 15 males) were studied with comprehensive MR imaging using rest/stress perfusion, rest cine, and delayed enhancement (DE)-MR techniques before and after CABG...

eosinophils when compared with medium alone. Interestingly, blocking the activity of cysteinyl Leukotries using antagonists inhibited eosinophil-derived ASM proliferation. Conclusions: Eosinophils enhances the proliferation of ASM cells. This role of eosinophil does not seem to depend on ASM derived ECM proteins nor on Eosinophil derived TGF-b or TNF-a. Eosinophil seems to induce ASM proliferat...

Airway smooth muscle (ASM) hyperplasia is a key feature of airway remodeling in development of lung diseases such as asthma. Anomalous proliferation of ASM cells directly contributes to ASM hyperplasia. However, the molecular mechanisms controlling ASM cell proliferation are not completely understood. Semaphorins are versatile regulators of various cellular processes including cell growth and p...

Dysfunctional neural control of airway smooth muscle (ASM) is involved in inflammatory diseases, such as asthma. However, neurogenesis in the lung is poorly understood. This study uses mouse models to investigate developmental mechanisms of ASM innervation, a process that is highly coordinated with ASM formation during lung branching morphogenesis. We show that brain-derived neurotrophic factor...

Asthma is characterized by the association of airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR), inflammation, and remodelling. The aim of the present article is to review the pivotal role of airway smooth muscle (ASM) in the pathophysiology of asthma. ASM is the main effector of AHR. The mechanisms of AHR in asthma may involve a larger release of contractile mediators and/or a lower release of relaxant mediato...

Activation of Toll-like receptors (TLRs) on immune surveillance cells in the lung has been implicated in the pathobiology of allergic asthma, a condition associated with altered airway smooth muscle (ASM) contractility. Because ASM is known to directly respond to various proasthmatic stimuli, the potential role of TLR signaling in ASM in regulating airway expression of the proasthmatic phenotyp...

Gurevich’s Abstract State Machines (ASMs) are computational models of systems specified in a high level language (ASM-SL). In this paper, we investigate the pros and cons of the automatic verification of ASM models using the ASM-Workbench and its extention ASM-SMV, which supports computer-aided verification by model checking. The results obtained are based on the validation and verification of ...

BACKGROUND Mast cell localization within the airway smooth muscle (ASM)-bundle plays an important role in the development of airway hyper-responsiveness (AHR). Genomewide association studies implicate the 'alarmin' IL-33 in asthma, but its role in mast cell-ASM interactions is unknown. OBJECTIVES We examined the expression and functional role of IL-33 in bronchial biopsies of patients with an...

TO THE EDITOR: We just witnessed an interesting debate, with lowdown punches, on the potential role of airway smooth muscle (ASM) in asthmatic airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) when the ASM proponents Drs. Gunst and Panettieri faced the ASM opponents Drs. Paré and Mitzner (2). However, part of the disagreement seems to lie upon the vocabulary used. On one hand, the proponents reported that sever...