Asthma :: essays research papers

bronchial asthma is a chronic illness that affects many people. Asthma affects approximately 155 million people around the world. The pharmaceutical constancy approximates $5.5 billion in sales for asthma medication per year for a condition that is incurable.Asthma is an inflammatory disease of the air draw and quarter businesss. The narrowing of airways occurs due to spunk and excessive mucous secretion. The constriction of the airway gives rise to common unhealthy symptoms of wheezing, coughing, tightness in the chest, and shortness of breath. The usual form of control for asthma is bronchiodilators and corticosteriods.Although, bronchiodilators are used in asthma therapy they have no consequence on the inflammatory process. Bronchiodilators are a class of drug that relaxes airway smooth muscle by increasing cAMP and opening thou channels. Corticosteriods on the other hand are now considered the first line of treatment for patients with severe and chronic asthma. Corticoste riods bind to a receptor in the cytosol, which translocates to the nucleus and binds DNA to activate genes. The main action of corticosteriods is to suppress quaternary inflammatory genes, such as cytokines, inflammatory enzymes and adhesion molecules. The effectiveness of the corticosteriod is in most part due to the inhibition of transcription particularors, such as AP-1 (activation protein 1), Nuclear factor-&61547b (NF-&61547b), and nuclear factor of activated T-cells (NF-AT), which are unavoidable for inflammatory response.The Fc&61541RI is the receptor for the IgE antibody. The Fc&61541RI is composed of a &61537 chain that binds the Fc depute of the IgE, the &61538 chain and the &61543 chain together form a tetrameric structure. Due to the fact that release of mediators from mast cells in asthma is IgE-E dependent one approach would be to block the activation of IgE using blocking antibodies that do not result in mast cells. A humanized murine monoclonal antibody directed to the Fc&61541RI-binding subject area of human IgE (rhuMAb-E25) reduces allergen specific IgE after intravenous administration. RhuMAb reduces aboriginal and late responses to inhaled allergen and eosinophils counts from induced sputum.