Induced sputum proteome in healthy subjects and asthmatic patients.

Background: Asthma is a heterogeneous disease characterized by abnormal airway pathophysiology and susceptibility to different stimuli, as exemplified by a subset of patients with exercise-induced bronchoconstriction. Induced sputum provides a noninvasive method to sample airway biofluids that are enriched in proteins.

Objective: We hypothesized that novel mechanisms in the pathogenesis of asthma might be revealed by studying the patterns of protein expression in induced sputum.