Grant: Project Grant

There is increasing evidence that intestinal microbiota impact on immune development and disease. Allergic asthma is an ever-increasing problem in developed countries and affects over 10% of all Canadians. Although there are many theories about the potential triggers of asthma, the actual causes remain undefined. Recent evidence suggests that shifts in resident microbiota (normal flora) may play a significant role in atopic diseases such as asthma (the so-called "hygiene hypothesis"). We have also demonstrated a role for the gastrointestinal microbiota experimental murine models of asthma. Recently, using a large clinical cohort of fecal samples from children (CHILD) we have also found strong correlations to particular members of the intestinal microbiota being protective. This occurs very early in life (3 months of age), and the effect is lost by one year. Adding these protective microbes into animal models that are transplanted with feces from asthmatic children (that lack the protective organisms) also decreases experimental asthma. The current application proposes to expand these exciting findings, and explore how these microbes might alter asthma outcome in experimental models. This will include studying how they impact on the host responses, as well as developing potential biomarkers to detect risk of future asthma. This work will provide a much better understanding of how certain gastrointestinal organisms can reduce the risk of asthma, and importantly this information can be used to develop new ways of predicting and treating asthma.