Levels of endothelin in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid of patients with symptomatic asthma and reversible airflow obstruction.

We have previously demonstrated that human bronchial smooth muscle cells possess a single class of specific binding sites for the potent bronchoconstrictive peptide, endothelin 1, and that human bronchial epithelial cells constitutively release an endothelin-like material in culture, which binds to smooth muscle cell receptors with a kinetic analogous to that observed with the authentic peptide. To evaluate the potential role of endothelin in the pathogenesis of asthma, we examined in this study the release of endothelin in the airways of six patients with asthma, both at the time when they were symptomatic and had reversible airflow obstruction and during the remission phase of the disease induced by treatment. Five normal volunteers and five patients with chronic bronchitis and airflow obstruction unaffected by bronchodilators were tested as control subjects. The release of endothelin in airway mucosa was assessed by RIA with the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid recovered during bronchoscopy. Patients with asthma had increased amounts of immunoreactive endothelin in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid than normal control subjects or subjects with chronic bronchitis (p less than 0.05) in absence of any significant alteration in the levels of circulating peptide. Treatment of patients with asthma with oral corticosteroids and inhaled beta-agonists for 15 days resulted in improvement of airflow obstruction and in more than threefold reduction in the contents of endothelin in lavage fluid. Our findings indicate that the potent bronchoconstrictive substance, endothelin, may contribute to the pathogenesis of airflow obstruction in asthma.