Patients with asthma, a major public health problem, are at high risk for serious disease from influenza virus infection, but the pathogenic mechanisms by which influenza A causes airway disease and asthma are not fully known. We show here in a mouse model that influenza infection acutely induced airway hyper-reactivity (AHR), a cardinal feature of asthma, independently of T helper type 2 (TH2) cells and adaptive immunity. Instead, influenza infection induced AHR through a previously unknown pathway that required the interleukin 13 (IL-13)–IL-33 axis and cells of the non-T cell, non-B cell innate lymphoid type called ‘natural helper cells’. Infection with influenza A virus, which activates the NLRP3 inflammasome, resulted in much more production of IL-33 by alveolar macrophages, which in turn activated natural helper cells producing substantial IL-13.

A balance between pro- and anti-inflammatory mechanisms at mucosal interfaces, sites of constitutive exposure to microbes and non-microbial foreign substances, allows for efficient protection against pathogens yet prevents adverse inflammatory responses associated with allergy, asthma, and intestinal inflammation1. Regulatory T (Treg) cells prevent systemic and tissue-specific autoimmunity and inflammatory lesions at mucosal interfaces. These cells are generated in the thymus (tTreg cells) and in the periphery (iTreg cells) and their dual origin implies a division of labor between tTreg and iTreg cells in immune homeostasis. Here we demonstrate that a highly selective blockage in differentiation of iTreg cells did not lead to unprovoked multi-organ autoimmunity, exacerbation of induced tissue-specific autoimmune pathology (EAE), or increased pro-inflammatory Th1 and Th17 cell responses. However, iTreg cell-deficient mice spontaneously developed pronounced Th2 type pathologies at mucosal sites — in the gastrointestinal tract and lungs — with hallmarks of allergic inflammation and asthma. Furthermore, iTreg cell deficiency altered gut microbial communities. These results suggest that whereas Treg cells generated in the thymus appear sufficient for control of systemic and tissue-specific autoimmunity, extrathymic differentiation of Treg cells impacts commensal microbiota composition and serves a distinct, essential function in restraint of allergic type inflammation at mucosal interfaces.

Obesity is associated with the development of asthma and considerable asthma-related healthcare utilization. To understand the immunological pathways that lead to obesity-associated asthma, we fed mice a high fat diet for 12 weeks, which resulted in obesity and the development of airway hyperreactivity (AHR), a cardinal feature of asthma. This AHR depended on innate immunity, since it occurred in obese Rag−/− mice, and on IL-17A and the NLRP3 inflammasome, since it did not develop in obese Il17−/− or Nlrp3−/− mice. The AHR was also associated with the presence in the lungs of CCR6+ innate lymphoid cells producing IL-17A (ILC3 cells), which could by themselves mediate AHR when adoptively transferred into Rag2−/− Il2rγ−/− mice. IL-1β played an important role by expanding the ILC3 cells, and treatment to block the function of IL-1β abolished obesity-induced AHR. Since we found ILC3-like cells in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid of human patients with asthma, we suggest that obesity-associated asthma is facilitated by inflammation mediated by NLRP3, IL-1β and ILC3 cells.