Airway smooth muscle stretch and airway hyperresponsiveness in asthma: Have we chased the wrong horse?

摘要

why do humans with asthma have hyperresponsive airways? About 20 years ago, a delightfully simple hypothesized mechanism emerged that lack of stretch on the airway smooth muscle (ASM) can be causal to hyperresponsive airways as it occurs in asthma. On the face of it, this mechanism seemed to bridge the gap between two ends of biological length scales associated with hyperreactivity: the ASM and the whole organ level response. But was the relationship between these data coincidental, and have we spent two decades chasing the wrong horse?