Asthma affects 25 million Americans, and recent advances in treatment are effective for only a portion of severe asthma patients. TREM-1, an innate receptor that canonically amplifies inflammatory signaling in neutrophils and monocytes, plays a central role in regulating lung inflammation. It is unknown how TREM-1 contributes to allergic asthma pathology.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Vitamin D supplementation has been suggested to enhance immunity during respiratory infection season. We tested the effect of active vitamin D (calcitriol) supplementation on key airway innate immune mechanisms in vitro.
Methods: Primary human airway epithelial cells (hAECs) grown at the air liquid interface were supplemented with 10-7 M calcitriol for 24 hours (or a time course) and their antimicrobial airway surface liquid (ASL) was tested for pH, viscoscity, and antibacterial and antiviral properties.
Inflammatory agents, microbial products, or stromal factors pre-activate or prime neutrophils to respond to activating stimuli in a rapid and aggressive manner. Primed neutrophils exhibit enhanced chemotaxis, phagocytosis, and respiratory burst when stimulated by secondary activating stimuli. We previously reported that Triggering Receptor Expressed on Myeloid cells-1 (TREM-1) mediates neutrophil effector functions such as increased superoxide generation, transepithelial migration, and chemotaxis.
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