Natural Killer T-Cells Trigger Asthma

When the mice lacking NKT were injected with NKT cells, they responded to the airborne antigens by developing asthma similarly to control animals.

"We were quite surprised by the clarity with which the mice either got asthma or not depending on whether or not they had NKT cells,” said senior author Dr. Dale Umetsu, professor of pediatrics at the Stanford University School of Medicine. "Prior to these studies, one assumed that Th2 cells were all that was needed to induce asthma, and they do play a very important role in asthma pathogenesis. Now it is clear that even if you have Th2 cells but you do not have NKT cells, you do not get asthma.”

The essential role of the NKT cells makes them logical targets for asthma therapy. "We are starting to look at people to see how these NKT cells may affect the development of asthma,” said Dr. Umetsu. " If we can find specific surface markers, we may be able to direct therapies specifically against the NKT cells to eliminate them.”



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Stanford University Medical Center