Evidence of an infectious asthma phenotype: Chlamydia a driven allergy and airway hyperresponsiveness in pediatric asthma.

摘要

Asthma is the most common chronic respiratory disease affecting young children and adults all over the world. An estimated 34.1 million Americans have reported asthma in their lifetime and the disease costs ∼US ;These facts lead the Webley lab to evaluate the carriage of Chlamydia in pediatric respiratory disease patients and the work confirmed that respiratory infections caused by Chlamydia is a significant risk factor in asthma development and live Chlamydia was isolated from the lungs of children with chronic asthma. However, the exact mechanism underlying chlamydial involvement in the disease remained unknown and we believed that a better understanding could shed important light on expanded treatment options and mechanisms of this infectious asthma phenotype. The work presented here provides new insight into how (1) early life chlamydial infection can lead to asthma initiation and exacerbation (2) respiratory chlamydial infection induces cellular and chemical immune responses that support asthmatic inflammation (3) other respiratory pathogens (eg. Mycoplasma) can drive similar immunological responses resulting in significant lung pathology.