Scientists from the University of Southampton and La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI), in California, have uncovered a group of immune cells that may drive severe asthma. These cells gather in the lungs and appear to cause the most harm in men who develop asthma in later life.
"If you are male and you develop asthma after age 40, there's a high chance this T cell population is in your lungs," says LJI Research Assistant Professor Gregory Seumois, who co-led the study with LJI Professor Pandurangan Vijayanand.
The new research, published in MED, suggests asthma patients with these cells in their lungs may be more likely to have hard-to-treat, and potentially fatal, asthma attacks. Normally a doctor would give an asthma patient a general therapy to dampen their immune response, but these cells don't respond to treatment.
The scientists uncovered these T cells, called 'cytotoxic CD4+ tissue-resident memory T cells', thanks to volunteers enrolled in the NHS clinic-based WATCH study. It follows hundreds of asthma patients of different ages, sexes, and disease severities. By following patients over many years, and analysing their immune cell populations, researchers are making new connections between asthma symptoms and immune cell activity.
"Once you understand the role of cells like these T cells better, you can start to develop treatments that target those cells," says WATCH study director Dr Ramesh Kurukulaaratchy, Associate Professor at the University of Southampton and researcher at the NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre.
Scientists now hope to learn more about these cells and their role in asthma development in order to develop personalised therapies for asthma patients.
How harmful T cells drive asthma
The T cells are called "memory" cells because they react to molecules that the body has previously fought off. They help protect the body from viruses and bacteria, but the same T cell memory is a big problem for asthma patients. Their misguided T cells see harmless molecules, such as pollen, and produce a dangerous inflammatory response.
source-science daily
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