Het ontrafelen van de dialoog tussen luchtweg basale cellen en immuniteit in gezondheid en allergische rhinitis

The general aim of this project is to better understand the role of the airway basal cells in health and chronic upper airway diseases such as allergic rhinitis and chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps. We suspect that intrinsic changes in basal cells of patients compared to healthy individuals are responsible for the conservation of the diseased epithelium and play a pivotal role its emergence. Therefore, we want to study how allergens interact with airway basal cells and whether epigenetic changes underlie an altered epithelial function, including defective barrier function, and what the consequences of this effect are on mucosal inflammatory responses. We hypothesize that a defective epithelial barrier (i.e. aberrant TLR signaling and/or epithelial permeability) may result from epigenetic changes due to chronic allergen exposure, which when established facilitate allergic sensitization and aggravate local inflammatory responses.