The following is a summary of “U-BIOPRED/BIOAIR proteins: inflammation or infection?” published in the December 2022 issue of Respiratory by Hahn et al.
Researchers would like to comment on the intriguing work that was just published by Sparreman Mikus and colleagues from the ‘Unbiased Biomarkers for the Prediction of Respiratory Disease Outcomes(U-BIOPRED) Group and the BIOAIR Consortium. Below are some ideas that they have on the study. The U-BIOPRED Group and the BIOAIR Consortium were responsible for the publication’s dissemination. The research found a connection between severe asthma and ten different plasma proteins.
These proteins were seen in both the discovery (U-BIOPRED) and validation (BIOAIR) cohorts of the study. Both of these cohorts showed evidence of the presence of these plasma proteins. It was discovered that inflammatory cytokines, growth factors, and chitinases are all included in this category of proteins. Chitinases are also included. In addition, there were proteins that were associated with the sphingolipid pathway, the complement cascade, and mast cells. Notably, these correlations were not found to be in any way dependent on the consumption of steroids, nor were they shown to be associated with type-2 inflammation. This is an important finding considering the previous two hypotheses. This turned out to be a pretty fascinating discovery.
To your attention, investigators would like to bring to your attention the fact that each of these protein categories has the potential to be involved with the pathogenesis of infectious agents that have in the past been linked to asthma (rhinovirus, respiratory syncytial virus, adenovirus, Mycoplasma pneumoniae, Chlamydia pneumoniae and Chlamydia trachomatis).