Expression data from asthmatic and healthy airway smooth muscle cells

Persistent severe asthma is associated with hyper-contractile airways and structural changes in the airway wall, including an increased airway smooth muscle (ASM) mass. This study used gene expression profiles from asthmatic and healthy airway smooth muscle cells grown in culture to identify novel receptors and pathways that potentially contributed to asthma pathogenesis. We used microarrays to compare the gene expression between asthmatic and healthy airway smooth muscle cells to understand the underlying pathway contributing the differences in cellular phenotypes Asthmatic airway smooth muscle cells (ASMC) are intrinsically different and have a differential transcriptional response to pro-fibrotic, pro-proliferation and pro-inflammatory stimuli than ASMC from healthy patients. We sought to identify genes that are differentially expressed between asthmatic and healthy ASMC under various stimulations which mimic the asthmatic airways. To this end, we obtained human ASMC from bronchial biopsies and explanted lungs from doctor diagnosed asthmatic patients (n=3) and healthy controls (n=3). The ASMC were then grown in culture and treated with pro-fibrotic (Transforming growth factor beta (TGFβ)), pro-proliferation (Fetal Bovine Serum (FBS)) and pro-inflammatory stimuli (Interleukin-1 beta (IL-1β)) for 8 hours. Gene expression was then evaluated using Affymetrix Human Gene 1.0ST arrays.