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Published on: April 16, 2019
Chemokines and asthma
Alison E John1, Nicholas W Lukacs
1Department of Pathology, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-0602, USA.
Insights
Chemokines, or chemotactic cytokines, are key players in airway inflammation during asthma. Understanding their complex roles may lead to new anti-inflammatory therapies for this common childhood illness.
Area of Science:
- Immunology
- Pulmonology
- Genetics
Background:
- Asthma is a complex chronic respiratory disease affecting millions worldwide, particularly children in urban poverty.
- Allergen exposure triggers intense airway inflammation, a hallmark of asthma.
- Chemokines (chemotactic cytokines) are implicated in multiple stages of allergic airway inflammation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To elucidate the role of chemokines in mediating airway inflammation in asthma.
- To explore the complexities of chemokine-chemokine receptor interactions in allergic responses.
- To identify potential therapeutic targets for asthma treatment.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of chemokine production and leukocyte recruitment in asthmatic airways.
- Investigation of chemokine-chemokine receptor interactions.
- Review of existing literature on chemokine function in allergic inflammation.
Main Results:
- Chemokines differentially recruit leukocytes to the airways.
- Chemokines regulate the activation of lung cells during allergic responses.
- The diversity of chemokine production and interactions complicates their study.
Conclusions:
- Chemokines play a central role in asthma pathogenesis by orchestrating inflammatory cell recruitment and activation.
- Further definition of chemokine roles may lead to novel anti-inflammatory therapies.
- Targeting chemokine-chemokine receptor pathways holds therapeutic potential for asthma.
Abstract:
Asthma is a complex disease resulting from a combination of factors including genetics, environmental exposure to allergens and prior infection with respiratory viruses. Worldwide, asthma is considered to be one of the leading causes of chronic childhood illness with young children living in poverty in urban environments being particularly severely affected. A common feature of the response to allergen challenge in asthmatic individuals is pattern of intense inflammation in the airways and a group of chemotactic cytokines, also known as chemokines, are believed to play a central role at multiple stages of this inflammatory response. Identification of the role of individual chemokines in the allergic response has been complicated by the diversity of chemokine production and the promiscuous pattern of chemokine-chemokine receptor interactions. However, chemokines have been shown to mediate the differential recruitment of leukocytes to the airways and regulate activation of both recruited and resident cells in the lungs. As the role of chemokines and their receptors at each stage of allergic inflammation become more clearly defined, it becomes increasingly likely that novel anti-inflammatory agents which modulate chemokine-chemokine receptor interactions will be developed and prove to be therapeutically beneficial.
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