Mechanism of Allergic Asthma Pathogenesis by Protease Allergen / 한양의대학술지

ABSTRACT

Asthma is a complex immune mediated chronic inflammatory lung disease characterized by chronic inflammation of the airways, airway hyper-responsiveness and airway obstruction, and the prevalence of this disease has increased in recent years. It is well known that many features of allergic asthma are consequences of Th2 cell dominated immune responses against allergens, thus allergen specific Th2 cells play a critical role in the pathogenesis. In this review, we will discuss the properties of common indoor and outdoor allergens including house dust mite, fungus, pollen and cockroach, the activation and differentiation of naive CD4 T cells by protease allergens, how specific allergens modify host's immune system to mediate immune evasion, and regulation of homing receptor expression and trafficking of allergen specific Th2 cells. Lastly, we will also overview the general course of pathogenesis of allergic asthma and discuss prospects of development of novel immuno-therapies to asthma.