In the news
11 Mar 2010
18 June 2009
Dr Hadwen Trust research heralds asthma breakthrough
Research with samples of human airway tissue from asthmatics, funded by the Dr Hadwen Trust, is enabling breakthroughs in the understanding of severe asthma.
The Dr Hadwen Trust supported work at King’s College London to improve access to airway tissue from volunteers with asthma using fibreoptic biopsy to supersede the use of animals and resected human lung tissue.
Professor Tak Lee, Head of the Division of Asthma and Allergy Research at King’s, who led the research commented:
“Research is this area has historically been limited by the relative lack of clinical materials, which have to come from asthmatic patients undergoing thoracic surgery for unrelated conditions (such as cancer) or post mortem. Animal models have therefore been used but models are not entirely representative of the human disease.”
“A few years ago we successfully developed techniques to obtain bronchial smooth muscle from asthmatic subjects using fibreoptic bronchoscopy. This is safe and can be done relatively easily. The smooth muscle cells can then be isolated from the biopsies and studied in detail.”
Newly published research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences1 explains changes in muscle cells lining the airways in asthmatics that lead to breathing difficulties.
Smooth muscle cells from people with moderate asthma contain abnormal levels of calcium and reduced levels of SERCA2, one of the pumps controlling cellular calcium levels. Depleting SERCA2 in normal airway cells makes them behave like cells from asthma patients. This research suggests that lack of SERCA2 plays a role in the development of asthma and that replacing SERCA2 may be the key to new treatments.
Using human-relevant approaches, in place of animal models, has provided vital clues that could lead to new methods of treating asthma or preventing long-term changes to the airways of asthmatics.
Reference
1 Mahn K, Hirst SJ, Ying S et al (2009) Diminished sarco/endoplasmic reticulum Ca2+ ATPase (SERCA) expression contributes to airway remodelling in bronchial asthma. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences online.
For a detailed report on the asthma project funded by the Dr Hadwen Trust visit www.scienceroom.org/asthma.
