The role of autophagy in allergic inflammation: a new target for severe asthma

The extent of cellular cleanup in inflammatory immune cells is tightly linked to the severity of allergic asthma, a study in mice finds. Yoo Seob Shin from Ajou University School of Medicine, South Korea, and colleagues looked at how immune cells called eosinophils package and destroy cellular debris, a process known as autophagy, in a mouse model of severe allergic asthma. They found a correlation between markers of disease severity in the lung tissue of the mice and the formation of autophagosomes, specialized structures that contain the cellular material destined for degradation by autophagy. Experimentally blocking autophagy in various ways reduced the number of eosinophils and the degree of inflammatory damage in the mouse lungs. The findings suggest that drugs targeting autophagy may provide a new way of treating severe allergic asthma.