Adeno-Associated Viral Vector-Delivered Pannexin-1 Mimetic Peptide Alleviates Airway Inflammation in an Allergen-Sensitized Mouse Model.

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease around the world. Extracellular adenosine triphosphate works as a dangerous signal in responding to cellular stress, irritation, or inflammation. It has also been reported the pathogenicity in asthma, with increased level in lungs of asthmatics. Pannexin-1 is one of the routes contributes to the release of adenosine triphosphate form intracellular to extracellular. The aim of this study was to apply pannexin-1 peptide antagonist 10Panx1 into adeno-associated viral vectors on ovalbumin-induced asthmatic mouse model. The results demonstrated that this treatment was able to reduce the adenosine triphosphate level in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid and downregulate the airway hyperresponsiveness to methacholine which was a major relevant to the symptom of asthma attack. The histological data also gave a positive support with decreased tissue remodeling and mucus deposition. Other asthmatic related features, including eosinophilic inflammation and ovalbumin-specific T helper type 2 responses, were also decreased by the treatment. Beyond the index of inflammation, the proportion of effector and regulatory T cells were examined to survey the potential mechanism behind. The data provided a slightly downregulated pattern in lung GATA3+ CD4 T cells. However, an upregulated population of CD25+FoxP3+ CD4 T cells in spleens. These data suggested that exogeneous expression of 10Panx1 peptide was potential to alleviated asthmatic airway inflammation, and this therapeutic effect might be from 10Panx1-mediated disruption of T cell activation or differentiation. Collectively, adeno-associated viral vector-mediated 10Panx1 expression could be a naval therapy option to develop.