Asthma and brain tumors – find out the link

For the first time, asthma is linked to brain tumors Observed in epidemiological studies about 15 years ago. Initially, it was considered irrelevant because the mechanisms linking lung and brain diseases could not be discovered. New research suggests that the link exists.

In 2015, neurologists noted that in children genetically predisposed to injury type of brain tumorAsthma does not develop at the same rate as the general population. It has been shown that their brain tumors are stimulated by the interaction between optic nerve And some immune cells, incl. T lymphocytes and microglia.

Asthma is an inflammatory disease in which T cells are also involved, and neurologists have begun to analyze how these cells behave when both conditions occur simultaneously. Scientists decided to test it on mice. specific Genes responsible for the development of optic nerve tumors Asthma is caused in animals at the age of 4 and 6 weeks. Interestingly, mice with induced asthma did not develop a brain tumor by 3 and 6 months of age, while those without asthma developed such a disease.

Of course, we will not cause anyone to suffer from asthma because it can be a fatal disease. But what if we could trick T cells into thinking they were asthma T cells when they entered the brain, so they no longer support the formation and growth of brain tumors? David Guttman, a neurologist at Washington University in St. Louis.

Previous research has shown that it prevents T cells from producing a protein known as . SceneryIt causes less inflammation in the respiratory tract. Now, mice with asthma showed greater expression of decorin in T cells in the spleen, lymph nodes, and optic nerves. This, in turn, is consistent with the condition we see in people with asthma.

Decorin expression was not at the same level in non-asthmatic mice, indicating that the protein is not beneficial for the lungs, but May show anti-cancer effect.

Dr. Guttmann’s team showed that increasing the amount of patterning along the optic nerve Inhibits local T cells Against the activation of microglia, an immune mechanism associated with the growth of brain tumors. It is possible that the use of decorin as a potential therapeutic method could prevent the accumulation of cancer cells in humans. More research is needed to confirm the findings in children with asthma.