Recent patents in allergy and immunology: A quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction method for diagnosing asthma and asthma exacerbation.

Background: Asthma is diagnosed based on a history of the characteristic symptoms and evidence of expiratory airflow limitation. However, asthma diagnosis using the existing tests is associated with a risk of coronavirus disease 2019 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 spread. In this study, we developed a quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR)-based asthma diagnosis tool.

Methods: We detected nectin-4 in the plasma of patients with asthma using qRT-PCR, explored the relationship of clinical variables.

Results: quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction revealed that plasma nectin-4 mRNA levels were higher in asthmatics than controls. These results correlated with lung function.

Conclusions: Those results suggest that qRT-PCR for nectin-4 may aid asthma diagnosis and monitoring.