Study of the airway in asthma by using RNA sequencing(RNA-seq)-based transcriptomics can elucidate novel molecular processes underlying the disease.We and others have found that nasal transcriptomics can provide important insights into asthma.5-10Because asthma affects and is affected by the entire airway, nasal transcriptomics can provide an accessible and valuable window into asthma pathophysiology. Nasal transcriptomics has revealed biomarkers of asthma, genes that are differentially expressed in individuals with exacerbated asthma versus in controls, and correlations with bronchial gene expression8andthe airway microbiome. Although nasally expressed genes have been implicated in asthma,causal relationships among the genes and biologic processes identified have been more difficult to disentangle.
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