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According to the researchers at UC Davis Health and Albany Medical College, protein vascular endothelial growth factor A-or VEGFA-plays a major role in the inflammation and airway obstruction associated with asthma. VEGFA was very strongly upregulated in asthma patients and animals that receive stimulations that cause asthma, this mediator can elicit the symptoms of asthma in the mouse model. When lungs respond to allergens or toxic air pollutants like ozone, and the process of a full-blown asthma attack begins.
The researchers studied how a mouse model responded to a common allergen, Alternaria alternata. Within hours, immune cells had infiltrated the airways, generating inflammation. When the mice were treated with VEGFA inhibitor SU1498, however, both the immune response and the inflammation declined.
ILC2s are stimulated by interleukin-33, another inflammatory immune molecule, which also encouraged airway hyperresponsiveness and turned up VEGFA’s cellular receptor, VEGFR2. VEGFA is best known for its activity in cancer and growing blood vessels to help feed hungry tumors, Illuminating this biology could eventually lead to new asthma treatments.
In the past, glucocorticoid inhalers were the go-to treatment. Recently, monoclonal antibodies have been developed to hit more precise targets. Monoclonal antibodies can target specific molecules rather than hindering the entire immune system, some of these antibodies target cytokines that mediate allergic symptoms and asthma. ILCs produce an influx of inflammatory neutrophils into the lungs.
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