Inhibition of Respiratory Bitter Taste Signal Transduction is Related to Asthma in Mice / 中国生物化学与分子生物学报

ABSTRACT

Because the large number of people is suffering from asthma, and about half of them are not well controlled, new therapeutic approach and more effective medicines are therefore urgently needed. Recent studies have shown that bitter taste receptors (T2Rs) are expressed in various tissues, and T2Rs might be used as the new targets for asthma treatment since some bitter compounds show therapeutic potential for asthma therapies. In this study, the relationship between the development and exacerbation of asthma and bitter signal transduction was analyzed by establishing the asthma model in the C57BL/6 mice. The present results showed that the total number of white blood cells and the number of eosinophil, neutrophil, lymphocyte and macrophages in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) were significantly increased (P < 0. 05), accompanied with the up-regulation of Muc5ac gene expression (P< 0. 01) and asthma-like pathologically changes in mice lungs in OVA or OVA+SO