An objective of the present invention is to provide a method of testing for bronchial asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a method of screening for candidate compounds for treating bronchial asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and a pharmaceutical agent for treating bronchial asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The present invention identified genes whose expression levels varied between respiratory epithelial cells that had been stimulated by IL-13 to induce the goblet cell differentiation, and unstimulated respiratory epithelial cells. The respiratory epithelial cells were cultured according to the air interface method. The genes were revealed to be useful as markers for testing for bronchial asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and screening for therapeutic agents for such diseases. Specifically, the present invention provides methods of testing for bronchial asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and methods of screening for compounds to treat the diseases based on the comparison of the expression levels of marker genes identified as described above.
本发明的目标是提供一种用于检测支气管哮喘或慢性阻塞性肺疾病的方法,一种筛选治疗支气管哮喘或慢性阻塞性肺疾病候选化合物的方法,以及一种治疗支气管哮喘或慢性阻塞性肺疾病的药物。本发明确定了
基因,这些
基因的表达
水平在通过IL-13刺激诱导粘液细胞分化的呼吸上皮细胞和未受刺激的呼吸上皮细胞之间有所变化。呼吸上皮细胞是根据空气界面方法培养的。这些
基因被发现可用作检测支气管哮喘或慢性阻塞性肺疾病的标记物和筛选治疗这些疾病的治疗剂的标记物。具体而言,本发明提供了一种基于上述描述的标记
基因的表达
水平比较的方法,用于检测支气管哮喘或慢性阻塞性肺疾病和筛选治疗该疾病的化合物的方法。