interleukin-13 signaling and its role in asthmainterleukin-13信号及其在哮喘中的作用.pdfVIP

REVIEWS Interleukin-13 Signaling and Its Role in Asthma Efren L. Rael, MD,1 and Richard F. Lockey, MD2 Patients with severe, poorly controlled asthma, who are Abstract: Asthma affects nearly 300 million people worldwide. The insensitive to glucocorticoid treatment, highlight the need for majority respond to inhaled corticosteroid treatment with or without new treatments. IL-13 signaling may be one pathway in- beta-adrenergic agonists. However, a subset of 5 to 10% with severe volved in the induction of corticosteroid-insensitive airway asthma do not respond optimally to these medications. Different inflammation.6 phenotypes of asthma may explain why current therapies show limited benefits in subgroups of patients. Interleukin-13 is impli- cated as a central regulator in IgE synthesis, mucus hypersecretion, IL-13 STRUCTURE AND SIGNALING airway hyperresponsiveness, and fibrosis. Promising research sug- IL-13 has a mass of 13 kDa and folds into 4 alpha gests that the interleukin-13 pathway may be an important target in helical bundles, A, B, C, and D. It shares overlapping sec- the treatment of the different asthma phenotypes. ondary structural features with interleukin-4 (IL-4); however, Key Words: interleukin-13, asthma, airway hyper-reactivity, it has 25% sequence homology and is capable of IL-4 fibrosis, single