Eosinophils are critical cellular mediators in allergic asthma and inflammation; however, the signals that regulate their functions are unclear. The transcription factor STAT6 regulates Th2 cytokine responses, acting downstream of IL-4 and IL-13. We showed previously that eosinophil-derived IL-13 plays an important role in the recruitment of T cells to the lung and the subsequent development of...

Notch is a pleiotropic signaling family that has been implicated in pathogenesis of allergic airway diseases; however, the distinct function of individual Notch ligands remains elusive. We investigated whether Notch ligands, Jagged1 and DLL4, exert differential effects in OVA-induced allergic asthma. We found that whilst Jagged1 inhibition mitigated Th2-dominated airway inflammation, blockage o...

Asthma is a syndrome with different inflammatory phenotypes. Animal models have shown that, after sensitization and allergen challenge, Th2 and Th1 cells contribute to the development of allergic airway disease. We have previously demonstrated that naturally occurring regulatory T cells (nTregs) can only marginally suppress Th2-induced airway inflammation and airway hyperresponsiveness. In this...

human and murine allergic airway inflammation. While its effector function is incompletely understood, our preliminary experiments lead us to propose that IL-16 is a naturally occurring modulator of Th2 cell-mediated airway inflammation. Prior experiments have demonstrated that IL-16 interferes with antigen recognition and Th2 cytokine production by CD4 cells. We tested the hypothesis that IL-1...

1 allergic diseases and cysteinyl leukotriene (lt) antagonists Allergic diseases include a variety of different illnesses (rhinitis, conjunctivitis, asthma, urticaria, and dermatitis) in which the physiological and pathological basis is the release of chemical mediators such as histamine; platelet-activating factor; metabolites of arachidonic acid; and chemotactic factors from mastocytes, basop...

UNLABELLED L-selectin is a cell adhesion molecule, which mediates leukocyte rolling on bronchopulmonary endothelium. Previous studies in a murine model of allergic airways disease have shown that L-selectin plays a role in the regulation of airway hyperresponsiveness in asthma via mechanisms independent of inflammation. Airway remodeling has been shown to modulate airway hyperresponsiveness ind...

The worldwide prevalence, morbidity, and mortality of asthma have dramatically increased over the last few decades and there is a clear need to identify new effective therapeutic and prophylactic strategies. Despite high numbers of NK cells in the lung and their ability to generate a variety of immunomodulatory mediators, the potential of NK cells as therapeutic targets in allergic airway disea...

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...

Background IVIg is a polyclonal IgG preparation with potent immune-modulating properties. We demonstrated that IVIg protects against airway hyperreactivity (AHR) and airway inflammation in mouse models of allergic airway disease, accompanied by peripheral induction of Foxp3 regulatory T-cells (iTreg). The requirement of IVIginduced iTreg and their antigen-specificity in attenuation of AHR and a...

BACKGROUND The diverse roles of innate immune cells in the pathogenesis of asthma remain to be fully defined. Natural killer (NK) cells are innate lymphocytes that can regulate adaptive immune responses. NK cells are activated in asthma; however, their role in allergic airway inflammation is not fully understood. OBJECTIVE We investigated the importance of NK cells in house dust mite (HDM)-tr...