Clues to asthma pathogenesis from microarray expression studies.

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease characterized by airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR), tissue remodeling, and airflow obstruction. The pathogenesis of asthma is only partly understood, and there is an urgent need for improved therapeutic strategies for this disease. Microarray technology has considerable promise as a tool for discovery of novel asthma therapeutic targets, although the field is still in its infancy. A number of studies have described expression profiles derived from human asthmatic lung tissue, mouse airway tissue, or from key cell types associated with asthma, but to date relatively few studies have exploited these findings to discover new pathways involved in the pathogenesis of asthma. Among the genes to have been identified by array studies and validated by further studies are monokine induced by interferon (IFN)-gamma, fatty acid binding proteins (FABP), and complement factor 5 (C5). Here we provide examples of microarray approaches to the discovery of new molecules associated with asthma. We anticipate that these types of analyses will provide considerable insight into asthma pathogenesis and will provide a wealth of new molecules for downstream analyses such as gene deficient mouse studies, or monoclonal antibody production.