Human PD-1 agonist treatment alleviates neutrophilic asthma by reprogramming T cells

Neutrophilic asthma is associated with disease severity and corticosteroid insensitivity. Novel therapies are required to manage this life-threatening asthma phenotype. Programmed cell death protein-1 (PD-1) is a key homeostatic modulator of the immune response for T cell effector functions. Our study was conducted to assess the therapeutic potential of a novel human PD-1 agonist in a humanized mouse model in which the PD-1 extracellular domain is entirely humanized. Using single-cell RNA sequencing, we demonstrated that PD-1 agonist treatment alleviates lung inflammation via the reprogramming of pulmonary effector T cells. mRNA profiles of lung CD45+ cells from isotype- and PD-1 agonist treated humanized PD-1 mice were generated by deep sequencing. Three samples from each group were mixed using the cell hashing technique (⁓50,000 cells/group).