Research Progress Of Relation Between Osteopontin And Asthma

Bronchial asthma is a common and frequently-occurring respiratorychronic diseases. Due to the fact that the morbidity and mortality of asthmaare increasing in the worldwide and the current therapy led by inhaledcorticosteroids and bronchodilators did not achieve the ideal control ofasthma, it’s emergent to seek new therapeutic strategies on asthma toimprove the prognosis and the quality of life of patients with asthma.Osteopontin (OPN), is a multifunctional and phosphorylated acidicglycoprotein which originally discovered in bone as an extracellular matrixprotein, was later identified as a cytokine in many types of cell and tissus,which plays a key role in tissue remodeling, fibrosis, immunomodulation,inflammation, as well as tumor metastasis. Recently, there is an increasingresearches which show the close relevance that OPN levels are elevated inpatients with asthma. Moreover, OPN pays a role in the migration ofinflammatory cells into the airway, airway inflammation as well as airwayremodeling and thus participates in the occurance and development ofasthma. This article is a review about the relation between osteopontin and bronchial asthma, in order to guide further research.