Airway epithelial gene expression in asthma versus healthy controls

Airway epithelial brushings were obtained for microarray analysis by research bronchoscopy in 62 subjects with mild-to-moderate asthma not on inhaled steroids and 43 healthy controls. Asthma subjects were stratified into 2 subgroups, Th2 high and Th2 low asthma, based on their expression of a three-gene signature of Type 2 inflammation: POSTN, SERPINB2, and CLCA1. Gene expression comparisons were made between: 1. asthmatics and healthy controls, and 2. Th2 high asthma and Th2 Low asthma/Healthy controls. The gene expression alterations most associated with asthma were then used in gene set enrichment analyses and gene signature development to compare this asthma dataset to COPD gene expression datasets.