Transcriptome-Level Interactions between Budesonide and Formoterol Provide Insight into the Mechanism of Action of Inhaled Corticosteroid/Long-Acting -Adrenoceptor Agonist Combination Therapy in Asthma.

In 2019, the Global Initiative for Asthma treatment guidelines were updated to recommend that inhaled corticosteroid (ICS)/long-acting -adrenoceptor agonist (LABA) combination therapy should be a first-in-line treatment option for asthma. Although clinically superior to ICS, mechanisms underlying the efficacy of this combination therapy remain unclear. We hypothesized the existence of transcriptomic interactions, an effect that was tested in BEAS-2B and primary human bronchial epithelial cells (pHBECs) using formoterol and budesonide as representative LABA and ICS, respectively.

Defining the requirements for the conjugative transfer of plasmid pRleVF39b.

strain VF39 contains a plasmid, pRleVF39b, which encodes a distinctive type of conjugation system (rhizobial type IVa) that is relatively widespread among rhizobial genomes. The cluster of genes encoding the transfer functions lacks orthologs to genes such as , and , but contains 15 conserved genes of unknown function. We determined the importance of these genes in conjugation by constructing marked and unmarked mutations in each gene, and established that six genes, now designated , played a significant role in plasmid transfer.