Bronchial Asthma

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(Figure 1)
Many different triggers are associated with asthma, most commonly when airborne irritants such as pet dander, cigarette smoke, plant pollen and mold spores (and even fecal matter from dust mites and cockroaches), signal a hyperresponsiveness in the airway, in form of special mast cells. (Figure 2& 3) This is Inflammation, the first of three stages of an asthma attack. These mast cells secrete histamine, which swells the airway. This is called the inflammatory response. The inflammatory response signals goblet cells in the airway walls to secrete too much mucus, causing the wheezing and coughing. This is the second step of the attack, the Constriction. Without the correct amount of oxygen, the bronchioles in the lungs cannot ship it to their alveoli, which are tiny sacs in the bronchioles of the lungs, that diffuse oxygen to the blood. (Figure 4) The carbon dioxide levels increase in the blood, as the body become more desperate for oxygen. This is the ...

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inheritance. An autosomal dominant gene is one carried on one of the 22 pairs of autosomes which means that males and females with the gene are equally likely to pass it on to male or female offspring. By formal definition, a 'true' autosomal dominant trait is fully expressed in the heterozygous state, and is indistinguishable from the homozygous mutant state. However, in clinical practice, there is only one human dominant disorder, Huntington disease, which meets this strict criterion. All the other dominant disorders, including asthma, are more severe when both alleles are mutant. Autosomal dominant genes reoccur in each generation, and do not skip a generation. A normal offspring ...

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