Strategy for depleting immune cells implicated in asthma-associated inflammation
- Date:
- May 19, 2016
- Source:
- JCI Journals
- Summary:
- Investigators identified human CRTh2 (hCRTh2), a protein expressed on several immune cell populations that are implicated in asthma, as a possible therapeutic target.
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Patients with asthma have chronic lung inflammation that results in sporadic narrowing of the airways and difficulty breathing. Symptoms and severity are variable among individuals; however, the cells and inflammatory factors that trigger asthmatic events have been fairly well characterized and are similar regardless of the asthma-inducing stimuli.
In the current issue of JCI Insight, investigators led by Karin Reif of KARBio LLC and Cary Austin of Genentech Inc. identified human CRTh2 (hCRTh2), a protein expressed on several immune cell populations that are implicated in asthma, as a possible therapeutic target. The research team generated antibodies targeting hCRTh2, and demonstrated that anti-CRTh2 depletes hCRTh2-positive cells from the lungs and lymphoid organs of asthmatic mice that were engineered to express the human form of CRTh2. Importantly, antibody treatment reduced production of asthma-associated cytokines and inflammation in these mice.
The results of this study support further exploration of CRTh2 as a therapeutic target for asthma.
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Journal Reference:
- Tao Huang, Meredith Hazen, Yonglei Shang, Meijuan Zhou, Xiumin Wu, Donghong Yan, Zhonghua Lin, Margaret Solon, Elizabeth Luis, Hai Ngu, Yongchang Shi, Arna Katewa, David F. Choy, Nandhini Ramamoorthi, Erick R. Castellanos, Mercedesz Balazs, Min Xu, Wyne P. Lee, Marissa L. Matsumoto, Jian Payandeh, Joseph R. Arron, Jo-Anne Hongo, Jianyong Wang, Isidro Hötzel, Cary D. Austin, Karin Reif. Depletion of major pathogenic cells in asthma by targeting CRTh2. JCI Insight, 2016; 1 (7) DOI: 10.1172/jci.insight.86689
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