New treatment for people with asthma, food allergies?

Date:
February 22, 2022
Source:
Indiana University School of Medicine
Summary:
Researchers have made an important new discovery about how a
particular molecule could improve lung function for people with
asthma and food allergies.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Researchers at Indiana University School of Medicine Department of
Microbiology and Immunology have made an important new discovery about
how a particular molecule could improve lung function for people with
asthma and food allergies.


========================================================================== "Millions of children and adults in the United States have asthma,
which results from allergen-induced inflammation in the lungs," said
Mark Kaplan, PhD, chair of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology
and the senior author of the study. "The ability of cells to communicate
with each other is critical in the development of inflammation and occurs through the release of molecules called cytokines.

One of these cytokines, interleukin-9 (IL-9), has been found in patients
with asthma and food allergy, but how IL-9 promotes inflammation has
been unclear.

In the study published recently in ScienceImmunology, researchers define
one of the cell types, called the lung macrophage, as a major target
of IL-9.

They found allergic lung inflammation decreased when the receptor for
IL-9 was missing and the macrophage is critical for IL-9 function in
the allergic lung.

They also defined downstream effectors of IL-9 in the macrophage,
identifying enzymes and additional cytokines that are required for the development of allergic inflammation, and found a correlation between IL-9
and the downstream effectors with the diagnosis of asthma in patients.

"This work is a significant advancement in our study of allergic lung inflammation," Kaplan said. "We can use this information to further study
the macrophage populations and determine how it could be a potential therapeutic approach for treatment of asthma and other types of lung inflammation." The study was led by Yongyao Fu, PhD, MS, a former
graduate student and now an adjunct assistant scientist in microbiology
and immunology at IU School of Medicine and a scientist at Genentech in California. Read the full publication in Science Immunology.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
Indiana_University_School_of_Medicine. Original written by Christina
Griffiths. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Yongyao Fu, Jocelyn Wang, Baohua Zhou, Abigail Pajulas, Hongyu Gao,
Baskar Ramdas, Byunghee Koh, Benjamin J. Ulrich, Shuangshuang Yang,
Reuben Kapur, Jean-Christophe Renauld, Sophie Paczesny, Yunlong
Liu, Robert M. Tighe, Paula Licona-Limo'n, Richard A. Flavell,
Shogo Takatsuka, Daisuke Kitamura, Robert S. Tepper, Jie Sun,
Mark H. Kaplan.

An IL-9-pulmonary macrophage axis defines the allergic lung
inflammatory environment. Science Immunology, 2022; 7 (68) DOI:
10.1126/ sciimmunol.abi9768 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220222135205.htm

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