Biomarkers of Irritant-Induced and Allergic Asthma
Status:
Completed
Trial end date:
2019-10-23
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Asthma is a heterogeneous disease, and although much is understood about mechanisms of
inflammation in allergic asthma, less is known about mechanisms of irritant-induced asthma
(IA). Understanding the underlying similarities and differences in mechanisms of these two
types of asthma will help focus current treatments and lead to development of new therapies.
There is a longstanding NYU/Bellevue Asthma registry (NYUBAR), with a large population (N =
900) of asthma cases and controls, a program that has been housed at the CTSI (formerly
GCRC). The destruction of the World Trade Center (WTC) resulted in massive dust, gas and fume
exposures to local residents, workers and cleanup workers and individuals involved in rescue
and recovery and adverse respiratory health effects of this disaster are reported more than 7
years after 9/11. Many responders, as well as those exposed as residents or local workers,
have developed IA, asthma that arises after a lag from an environmental exposure . The WTC
Environmental Health Center (WTC EHC) is one of the three New York City (NYC) WTC Centers of
Excellence and the only one that focuses on treatment and monitoring of local workers and
residents. As such, it has a large population of individuals with irritant-induced asthma. It
has been proposed to use participants from the NYUBAR and the WTC EHC to expand the knowledge
of irritant and allergic asthma. Non-invasive studies allow for the assessment of airway
inflammation, a non-specific response to environmental exposure and injury. Recent
technologies also allow for assessment of microRNA (miRNA), small RNAs that regulate gene
expression at the post-transcriptional level and thus serve as a pathway to regulation of
inflammation. The hypothesis will be tested in that airway inflammation in irritant and
allergic asthma may be similar, but result from divergent miRNA regulatory pathways expressed
in sputum cells. These studies will provide preliminary data for future studies that will
help identify biological pathways to categorize these asthma phenotypes and target future
treatment interventions.
Phase:
Phase 2
Details
Lead Sponsor:
New York University School of Medicine NYU Langone Health