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Rationale: Fungal exposure has been associated with predisposing and protective effects on the development of childhood asthma. Objectives: To study whether early-life house dust mycobiota composition is associated with the development of asthma. Methods: Mycobiota were determined by amplicon sequencing from 382 dust samples collected from living room floors 2 months after birth in homes of the LUKAS cohort. Asthma status by 10.5 years of age was defined from questionnaires and assigned as ever asthma (n = 68) or current asthma (n = 27). Inhalant atopy was clinically determined at the same age. b-composition was analyzed using PERMANOVA-S, and asthma and atopy analyses were performed using discrete time hazard models and logistic regression, respectively. Results: The house dust mycobiota composition based on Bray-Curtis distance was different in the homes of children who later did or did not develop asthma. The first and the fourth axes scores of principal coordinates analysis based on Bray-Curtis were associated with ever asthma. Of the genera with the strongest correlation with these axes, the relative abundance of Boeremia, Cladosporium, Microdochium, Mycosphaerella, and Pyrenochaetopsis showed protective associations with asthma. None of these associations remained significant after mutual adjustment among the five genera or when mutually adjusted for other microbial cell wall markers and previously identified asthma-protective bacterial indices. Neither fungal a-diversity nor load was associated with asthma in the whole population, but higher fungal richness was a risk factor among children on farms. Higher fungal loads (measured via quantitative polymerase chain reaction) in house dust were associated with the risk of inhalant atopy. Conclusions: The results of our analyses from this wellcharacterized birth cohort suggest that the early-life house dust mycobiota in Finnish homes, characterized via DNA amplicon sequencing, do not have strong predisposing or protective effects on asthma development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Current in vitro allergen‐specific IgE (sIgE) detection assays measure IgE against allergen extracts or molecules in a single‐ or multiplex approach. Direct comparisons of the performance of such assays among young children with common presentations of allergic diseases regardless of sensitization status are largely missing. Objectives: The aim of this study was a comparison of the analytical and diagnostic performance for common clinical questions of three commonly used technologies which rely upon different laboratory methodologies among children of the All Age Asthma (ALLIANCE) cohort (clinicaltrials.gov: NCT02496468). Methods: Sera from 106 paediatric study participants (mean age 4 years) were assessed for the presence of sIgE by means of the ImmunoCAP™ sx1 and fx5 mixes, the ImmunoCAP ISAC™ 112 microarray and a Euroline™ panel. Results: Total and negative concordance was high (>82%–>89%), while positive concordance varied considerably (0%–100%) but was also >50% for the most common sensitizations analysed (house dust mite and birch). All three test systems showed good sensitivity and specificity (AUC consistently > 0.7). However, no significant differences with regard to identifying sIgE sensitizations associated with symptoms in children with suspected pollen‐ or dust‐triggered wheeze or presenting with symptoms of allergic rhinoconjunctivitis or food allergy were detected. Extending the number of allergens did not change the similar performance of the three assay systems. Conclusion and Clinical Relevance: Among young children, the three sIgE assays showed good analytical and diagnostic concordance. Our results caution that the identification of larger numbers of sensitizations by more comprehensive multiplex approaches may not improve the clinical utility of sIgE testing in this age group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keywords: airway epithelium; cryopreservation; human rhinovirus EN airway epithelium cryopreservation human rhinovirus 1486 1489 4 06/01/20 20200601 NES 200601 To the Editor, Human epithelial cell lines (eg, A549 and BEAS-2B cells), as well as primary nasal and bronchial epithelial cells, have been used extensively to explore the role of virus-host interactions in respiratory allergic diseases.[1] In vitro cell cultures of primary airway epithelial cells from patients are a key model for these studies. In RV-infected cells, 45 genes were differentially expressed (36 higher and 9 lower in fresh compared to cryopreserved cells) (Figure C, Table S2B). In the last decades, epithelial infection models have evolved from using cell lines[5] to submerged primary cells[6] to air-liquid interphase differentiated cells.[7] At the same time, utilization of cryopreserved cells or tissues has increased considerably. [Extracted from the article]

Preschool wheezing diagnosis and management-Survey of physicians' and caregivers' perspective The most frequent response (50.7%) points out response to treatment, while allergy tests were also very popular, having been chosen by 34.1%. This is the first survey exploring physicians' views on preschool wheeze, showing that wheezing itself and its association with future asthma remain a substantial challenge for most physicians. Furthermore, this study does not include a completely random sample of physicians, due to methodology used (email and social network), so only physicians familiar with the technology were able to participate. [Extracted from the article]