Background-To prospectively apply an automated, quantitative 3-D approach to imaging and airway analysis to assess airway remodeling in asthma.

Rationale: Despite long-term therapy with corticosteroids, patients with severe asthma develop irreversible airway obstruction. Objectives: To evaluate if there are structural and functional differences in the airway epithelium in severe asthma associated with airway remodeling. Methods: In bronchial biopsies from 21 normal subjects, 11 subjects with chronic bronchitis, 9 subjects with mild asthma, and 31 subjects with severe asthma, we evaluated epithelial cell morphology: epithelial thickness, lamina reticularis (LR) thickness, and epithelial desquamation. Levels of retinoblastoma protein (Rb), Ki67, and Bcl-2 were measured, reflecting cellular proliferation and death. Terminal deoxynucleotidyl-mediated dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) was used to study cellular apoptosis. Measurements and Main Results: Airway epithelial and LR thickness was greater in subjects with severe asthma compared with those with mild asthma, normal subjects, and diseased control subjects (p ϭ 0.009 and 0.033, respectively). There was no significant difference in epithelial desquamation between groups. Active, hypophosphorylated Rb expression was decreased (p ϭ 0.002) and Ki67 was increased (p Ͻ 0.01) in the epithelium of subjects with severe asthma as compared with normal subjects, indicating increased cellular proliferation. Bcl-2 expression was decreased (p Ͻ 0.001), indicating decreased cell death suppression. There was a greater level of apoptotic activity in the airway biopsy in subjects with severe asthma as compared with the normal subjects using the TUNEL assay (p ϭ 0.002), suggesting increased cell death. Conclusions: In subjects with severe asthma, as compared with subjects with mild asthma, normal subjects, and diseased control subjects, we found novel evidence of increased cellular proliferation in the airway contributing to a thickened epithelium and LR. These changes may contribute to the progressive decline in lung function and airway remodeling in patients with severe asthma.

Use of protease inhibitor (PI)-based highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) has been associated with altered regional fat distribution, insulin resistance, and dyslipidemias. To assess how PI-based HAART affects adipocyte gene expression in male HIV-1-infected patients, reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction was used to quantify messenger RNA expression of adipocyte transcription factors and adipocytokines in thigh and abdominal subcutaneous adipose tissue from male (1) HIV-1 seronegative subjects (control, n = 9), (2) asymptomatic treatment-naive HIV-1-infected patients (naive, n = 6), (3) HIV-1-infected patients who were receiving antiretroviral agents but never received PIs (PI naive, n = 5), (4) HIV-1-infected patients who were receiving PIbased HAART (PI, n = 7), and (5) HIV-1-infected patients who discontinued the PI component of their antiviral therapy more than 6 months before enrollment (past PI, n =7). In the PI group, the messenger RNA expression levels of the CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein α, leptin, and adiponectin (18%, P < .01; 23%, P < .05; and 13%, P < .05, respectively) were significantly lower than the levels measured in the PI-naive group. These results are consistent with previous studies on the effects of PIs on cultured adipocytes. Prospective longitudinal studies of thigh fat adipose tissue gene expression could provide further insights on the pathogenesis of metabolic complications associated with PI-based HAART.

Vitamin A or retinol is an essential nutrient that is required for growth, reproduction, fetal development, and vision (1-3). Within cells, retinol can be oxidized reversibly to retinal and subsequently irreversibly oxidized to retinoic acid. The effects of retinoic acid are directly mediated through nuclear retinoic acid receptors, which are ligand-dependent transcriptional activators belonging to the nuclear receptor family (3-5). Retinol supports all known functions of vitamin A, but retinoic acid does not support the function of vision (since retinal is the chromophore) or reproduction except when administered in pharmacological doses (1-3, 6 -9) Retinol is extremely hydrophobic. Within the aqueous environment of the cytosol, retinol is bound to specific carrier proteins (10 -14) termed cellular retinol-binding proteins (CRBPs).

Cellular retinol binding protein II (CRBP II) is a vitamin A-binding protein that is expressed specifically in small intestinal villus absorptive cells. Previous studies have shown that retinoic acid upregulates endogenous human CRBP II gene expression in differentiated Caco-2 cells. To better characterize the regulation of human CRBP II expression, we analyzed the ability of receptor-selective agonists to enhance transcription from the 5'-upstream flanking region of the human CRBP II gene. Stable transfection experiments showed that the proximal 2.8-kb region of the human CRBP II gene is sufficient for retinoic acid inducibility in differentiated Caco-2 cells. However, direct sequence analysis and transient transfection experiments indicate that, unlike the rat CRBP II promoter, the human CRBP II promoter is not a direct retinoid X receptor target. The results indicate that the retinoic acid responsiveness of the human CRBP II promoter is mediated by an indirect mechanism and that this mechanism is associated with enterocyte differentiation.

No abstract