DP2 antagonism reduces airway smooth muscle mass in asthma by decreasing eosinophilia and myofibroblast recruitment.

Increased airway smooth muscle mass, a feature of airway remodeling in asthma, is the strongest predictor of airflow limitation and contributes to asthma-associated morbidity and mortality. No current drug therapy for asthma is known to affect airway smooth muscle mass. Although there is increasing evidence that prostaglandin D2 type 2 receptor (DP2) is expressed in airway structural and inflammatory cells, few studies have addressed the expression and function of DP2 in airway smooth muscle cells. We report that the DP2 antagonist fevipiprant reduced airway smooth muscle mass in bronchial biopsies from patients with asthma who had participated in a previous randomized placebo-controlled trial. We developed a computational model to capture airway remodeling. Our model predicted that a reduction in airway eosinophilia alone was insufficient to explain the clinically observed decrease in airway smooth muscle mass without a concomitant reduction in the recruitment of airway smooth muscle cells or their precursors to airway smooth muscle bundles that comprise the airway smooth muscle layer. We experimentally confirmed that airway smooth muscle migration could be inhibited in vitro using DP2-specific antagonists in an airway smooth muscle cell culture model. Our analyses suggest that fevipiprant, through antagonism of DP2, reduced airway smooth muscle mass in patients with asthma by decreasing airway eosinophilia in concert with reduced recruitment of myofibroblasts and fibrocytes to the airway smooth muscle bundle. Fevipiprant may thus represent a potential therapy to ameliorate airway remodeling in asthma.

Electrical impedance spectroscopy and the diagnosis of bladder pathology.

Bladder pathology is usually investigated visually by cystoscopy. At present, definitive diagnosis of the bladder can be made by biopsy only, usually under general anaesthesia. This is a relatively high-cost procedure in terms of both time and money and is associated with discomfort for the patient and morbidity. Thus, we used an electrical impedance spectroscopy technique for differentiating pathological changes in the urothelium and improving cystoscopic detection. For ex vivo study, a whole or part of the patient's urinary bladder was used to take the readings less than half an hour after excision at room temperature, about 27 degrees C, using the Mk3.5 Sheffield System (2-384 kHz in 24 frequencies). In this study, 145 points (from 16 freshly excised bladders from patients) were studied in terms of their biopsy reports matching to the electrical impedance measurements. For in vivo study, a total of 106 points from 38 patients were studied to take electrical impedance and biopsy samples. The impedance data were evaluated in both malignant and benign groups, and revealed a significant difference between these two groups. The impedivity of the malignant bladder tissue was significantly higher than the impedivity of the benign tissue, especially at lower frequencies (p < 0.001). In addition, the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve for impedance measurements indicated that this technique could provide diagnostic information (individual classification is possible). Thus, the authors have investigated the application of bio-impedance measurements to the bladder tissue as a novel and minimally invasive technique to characterize human bladder urothelium. Therefore, this technique, especially at lower frequencies, can be a complementary method for cystoscopy, biopsy and histopathological evaluation of the bladder abnormalities.

Stand-off electrode (SoE): a new method for improving the sensitivity distribution of a tetrapolar probe.

Tetrapolar probes have been widely used for measuring the impedance spectra of tissues. However, the non-uniform sensitivity distribution of these probes limits the ability to identify conductivity changes in tissue. This paper presents a novel method for improving the sensitivity distribution beneath a tetrapolar probe. The method consists of placing a hydrogel layer between the probe and the tissue in order to make the sensitivity positive everywhere within the tissue. Theoretical and measured sensitivity distributions are compared. A good agreement between theoretical and measured data from an electrolytic tank was obtained with a maximum error of 1.3%. In vivo forearm measurements showed that the use of a conductive layer does enable tissue conductivity spectra to be determined. A smaller variation between subjects was obtained when using the stand-off. It was not possible to assess the absolute accuracy of the method due to the absence of a 'gold standard' for the measurement of tissue conductivity spectra.