Alzheimer’s Disease Affects Severity of Asthma Through Methylation Control of Foxp3 Promoter

: Recent studies suggest that severity of asthma can be modulated by neuropsychiatric conditions, while the underlying mechanisms are not clear. Here, we used ovalbumin (OVA) to induce asthma in APP/PS1 mice, a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease (AD), or in their wildtype control C57BL/6J mice. We found that all hallmarks of asthma by OVA were significantly attenuated in APP/PS1 mice, compared to age- and gender-matched C57BL/6J mice. Interestingly, significantly higher number of regulatory T cells (Treg) was detected in the APP/PS1 mouse lung, compared to those in the C57BL/6J mouse lung. Since Foxp3 is crucial for differentiation of naive T cells into Treg and is the most important marker for Treg, we examined the Foxp3 levels in the T cells from the lung of these mice. We found that the Foxp3 levels in the APP/PS1 mouse lung were significantly higher than those in the C57BL/6J mouse lung, likely resulting from reduced Foxp3 promoter methylation. Thus, our study suggests that AD may affect severity of asthma through methylation control of Foxp3 promoter in T cells.