Abstract
Airway remodeling is a pathophysiologic process at the clinical, cellular, and molecular level relating to chronic obstructive airway diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma and mustard lung. These diseases are associated with the dysregulation of multiple molecular pathways in the airway cells. Little progress has so far been made in discovering the molecular causes of complex disease in a holistic systems manner. Therefore, pathway and network reconstruction is an essential part of a systems biology approach to solve this challenging problem. In this paper, multiple data sources were used to construct the molecular process of airway remodeling pathway in mustard lung as a model of airway disease. We first compiled a master list of genes that change with airway remodeling in the mustard lung disease and then reconstructed the pathway by generating and merging the protein-protein interaction and the gene regulatory networks. Experimental observations and literature mining were used to identify and validate the master list. The outcome of this paper can provide valuable information about closely related chronic obstructive airway diseases which are of great importance for biologists and their future research. Reconstructing the airway remodeling interactome provides a starting point and reference for the future experimental study of mustard lung, and further analysis and development of these maps will be critical to understanding airway diseases in patients.
Highlights
Airway remodeling is a term used to describe the dynamic processes in obstructive airway diseases
The genes that are known to be involved in airway remodeling in sulfur mustard exposed patients are given in the File S1
Mustard lung networks We compiled a gene list involved in airway remodeling based on proteinprotein interaction networks (PPI) resources and literature mining
Summary
Airway remodeling is a term used to describe the dynamic processes in obstructive airway diseases. Consequences of airway remodeling could include a decrease in pulmonary function and reduced responsiveness to bronchodilator therapy. Airway remodeling is reported in complex diseases such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and Mustard Lung as the main respiratory clinical sign. Mustard lung has an irreversible pattern of airway obstruction like COPD [4] without any evidence of emphysema. It is resistant to anti-asthma therapy and an irreversible pattern of obstruction. Based on these similarities with asthma and COPD, mustard lung can be a good model for evaluation of airway remodeling
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