Project description:Severe LRIs are a major cause of infant/child hospitalization and a risk factors for asthma pathogenisis. Innate immune interactions with microbial pathogens, esp. in early life, underpin risk. We aimed to characterize cord blood mononuclear cell (CBMC) responses to activation of micriobial recognition receptors (TLRs 3, 4, & 7) and identify response pattern variations associated withsLRI susceptibility in infancy.
Project description:BACKGROUND: 50% to 80% of asthma exacerbations are precipitated by viral upper respiratory tract infections (RTI), yet the influence of viral pathogen diversity on asthma outcomes is poorly understood due to the limited scope and throughput of conventional viral detection methods. METHODS: We investigated the capability of the Virochip, a DNA microarray-based viral detection platform, to characterize the viral diversity in RTIs in asthmatic and non-asthmatic adults. RESULTS: The Virochip detected viruses in a higher proportion of samples (65%) than culture isolation (17%), while exhibiting high concordance (98%), sensitivity (97%) and specificity (98%) with pathogen-specific PCR. A similar spectrum of viruses was identified in the RTIs from each patient subgroup; however, unexpected diversity among the coronaviruses (HCoVs) and HRVs was revealed. All but one of the HCoVs corresponded to the newly-recognized HCoV-NL63 and HCoV-HKU1 viruses, and over 20 different serotypes of HRVs were detected, including a set of 5 divergent isolates that form a distinct genetic subgroup. CONCLUSIONS: The Virochip can detect both known and novel variants of viral pathogens present in RTIs. Given the diversity detected here, larger scale studies will be necessary to determine if particular substrains of viruses confer an elevated risk of asthma exacerbation This SuperSeries is composed of the SubSeries listed below.