Involvement of the epidermal growth factor receptor in IL-13-mediated corticosteroid-resistant airway inflammation.

BACKGROUND: Effective treatment for severe asthma is a significant unmet need. While eosinophilic inflammation caused by type 2 cytokines is responsive to corticosteroid and biologic therapies, many severe asthmatics exhibit corticosteroid-unresponsive mixed granulocytic inflammation. OBJECTIVE: Here, we tested the hypothesis that the pro-allergic cytokine, IL-13, can drive both corticosteroid-sensitive and corticosteroid-resistant responses. RESULTS: By integration of in vivo and in vitro models of IL-13-driven inflammation, we identify a role for the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR/ERBB1) as a mediator of corticosteroid-unresponsive inflammation and bronchial hyperresponsiveness driven by IL-13. Topological data analysis using human epithelial transcriptomic data from the U-BIOPRED cohort identified severe asthma groups with features consistent with the presence of IL-13 and EGFR/ERBB activation, with involvement of distinct EGFR ligands. Our data suggest that IL-13 may play a dual role in severe asthma: on the one hand driving pathologic corticosteroid-refractory mixed granulocytic inflammation, but on the other hand underpinning beneficial epithelial repair responses, which may confound responses in clinical trials. CONCLUSION AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Detailed dissection of those molecular pathways that are downstream of IL-13 and utilize the ERBB receptor and ligand family to drive corticosteroid-refractory inflammation should enhance the development of new treatments that target this sub-phenotype(s) of severe asthma, where there is an unmet need.

Soluble ADAM33 initiates airway remodeling to promote susceptibility for allergic asthma in early life.

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory airways disease that usually begins in early life and involves gene-environment interactions. Although most asthma exhibits allergic inflammation, many allergic individuals do not have asthma. Here, we report how the asthma gene a disintegrin and metalloprotease 33 (ADAM33) acts as local tissue susceptibility gene that promotes allergic asthma. We show that enzymatically active soluble ADAM33 (sADAM33) is increased in asthmatic airways and plays a role in airway remodeling, independent of inflammation. Furthermore, remodeling and inflammation are both suppressed in Adam33-null mice after allergen challenge. When induced in utero or added ex vivo, sADAM33 causes structural remodeling of the airways, which enhances postnatal airway eosinophilia and bronchial hyperresponsiveness following subthreshold challenge with an aeroallergen. This substantial gene-environment interaction helps to explain the end-organ expression of allergic asthma in genetically susceptible individuals. Finally, we show that sADAM33-induced airway remodeling is reversible, highlighting the therapeutic potential of targeting ADAM33 in asthma.