The Role of Th9 Cells and Eosinophils Activity in Allergic Airway Diseases

The prevalence of allergic diseases, especially airway allergic diseases, has increased dramatically over the last twenty years all over the world including Lithuania. Allergic diseases are associated with significantly reduced quality of life and can sometimes cause death. Allergic diseases have turned into an important economic and social burden and nowadays take a more and more important place in the health system. Despite all intensive investigations, the pathogenesis of allergic airway diseases still remains unclear. As allergic diseases have a systemic pattern and multicomponent pathogenesis, it is important to investigate not individual cells, but examine various inflammatory cells instead, including their biological products and possible cellular interactions along the course of allergic diseases. This research focuses on the cells that are claimed to be important in the pathogenesis of allergic airway diseases, i.e. a newly found effector T helper cell subset (Th9 cells), which still lacks deeper investigation, and the main inflammatory cell, eosinophil. This study aims at determining the importance the way the Th9 lymphocytes perform, the eosinophil's activity, as well as molecular factors affecting these cells has in the process of prognostication of allergic airway diseases, namely allergic rhinitis and allergic asthma. An allergen challenge test will be performed in order to define the meaning of pathogenetic changes. The results of this research may reveal useful information in the course of allergic diseases and may be valuable when creating strategic principles of prophylaxis. The findings could be used for prevention and early diagnostics of allergic diseases and it could also open doors to discovering new and effective treatment.