Liver enzyme linked to asthma.

• Position: Allergy & Immunology - Brief Article

The enzyme arginase, normally found in the liver, is expressed more--and is more active--in allergen-challenged lungs, according to researchers in the Division of Allergy and Immunology, Cincinnati (Ohio) Children's Research Foundation. Arginase regulates several critical factors involved in asthma, such as the generation of the bronchodilator nitric oxide and chronic remodeling in the lung. These findings provide important insight into a new mechanism likely to be intrinsically involved in the pathogenesis of asthma, and a pathway amenable to drug intervention.

Marc Rothenberg and his colleagues, using a mouse model, have learned that approximately 500 genes--nearly one in 20--are involved in inducing experimental asthma. Although the disease may present similarly in different individuals, various subsets of genes may be involved in each case. For the first time, researchers are exploring the microbiological and molecular fingerprint of the disease and how...