TY - JOUR T1 - Human bronchial epithelial cells from patients with asthma have an altered gene expression profile JF - ERJ Open Research JO - erjor DO - 10.1183/23120541.00625-2021 SP - 00625-2021 AU - Sangita Bhaker AU - Michael A. Portelli AU - Kamini Rakkar AU - Dominick Shaw AU - Simon Johnson AU - Christopher Brightling AU - Ian Sayers Y1 - 2021/01/01 UR - http://openres.ersjournals.com/content/early/2021/11/11/23120541.00625-2021.abstract N2 - Asthma is a multi-factorial disease presenting with wheeze and shortness of breath and is known to be exacerbated by triggers such as pollen, house dust mite and viral infection. In the lung, the bronchial epithelium is recognised as a central driver of airway structural changes, including epithelial goblet cell hyperplasia and metaplasia that are features of asthma. Bronchial epithelial cells isolated from patients with asthma and cultured in vitro have altered barrier properties [1], elevated expression of remodelling factors [2] and defective repair [3]. Interestingly, genome wide association studies (GWAS) of asthma have implicated a number of genes that are known to be expressed and functional in the airway epithelium, including IL33, IL1RL1, TSLP and MUC5AC [4]. To identify the molecular mechanisms underlying altered bronchial epithelial cell phenotype in asthma patients, several studies have completed transcriptomic analyses using bronchial brush samples. Two recent meta-analyses [5, 6] suggested that alterations in chemical stimulus, extracellular region, pathways in cancer, and arachidonic acid metabolism were features of the bronchial epithelium in the lungs of patients with asthma and included 78 up- and 75 down-regulated genes [5]. While useful, a key question is how much the airway environment of a patient is driving this differential gene expression profile (GEP) and how much is intrinsic to the bronchial epithelial cells themselves? To answer this question, we completed transcriptomic analyses of bronchial epithelial cells (BEC) cultured in 2D through multiple passages in the laboratory that had originally been isolated from control subjects without disease or patients with asthma. An attrition rate (for successful culture) of 54% and 42% was observed in the asthma and control populations respectively.FootnotesThis manuscript has recently been accepted for publication in the ERJ Open Research. It is published here in its accepted form prior to copyediting and typesetting by our production team. After these production processes are complete and the authors have approved the resulting proofs, the article will move to the latest issue of the ERJOR online. Please open or download the PDF to view this article. ER -