Bronchial asthma: Lessons from murine models

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Abstract
The term asthma was coined by Hippocrates to refer to the attacks of breathlessness and wheezing experienced by sufferers. Contributors to our understanding of bronchial asthma read like a “Who’s Who” of medical history including, among the ancients, Hippocrates and Galen, in the 12th century, Moses Maimonides, and in modern times, European, especially British, physicians (1). For centuries, the attacks of breathlessness characteristic of asthma were thought to be due to abnormalities of bronchial smooth muscle. Over the past two decades, the underlying inflammation associated with asthma, characterized by marked infiltration of eosinophils, has received increasing attention (2). With this recognition has come a renewed appreciation of the value of therapies directed at this inflammation, particularly the effective use of glucocorticoids, and especially inhaled steroids (3). Nonetheless, in spite of new insights into the nature of asthma, it continues to exert a significant toll on patients; evidence shows that it is increasing in prevalence and severity, especially in westernized societies. Indeed, current information suggests that the prevalence of asthma has risen steadily and has doubled over the past 20 years (4). Moreover, asthma continues to be a source of significant mortality in spite of the improved pharmacopoeia available to physicians (5). Asthma is a member of the family of atopic diseases. In 1923, Coca and Cooke (6) proposed the term atopy to refer to the familial occurrence of asthma, allergic rhinitis (hay fever), and dermatitis (atopic dermatitis) associated with positive immediate skin test reactions to environmental antigens, such as ragweed pollen extracts. Prausnitz and Küstner (7) then showed that the sera of allergic patients contain a specific active substance, which in the 1960s was identified by K. Ishizaka and coworkers (8) as the fifth immunoglobulin class, namely IgE. Subsequently, the discovery of an IgE myeloma protein by Johansson and …