Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Sep 17;4(1):100342.
doi: 10.1016/j.jacig.2024.100342. eCollection 2025 Feb.

Association between asthma and IgG levels specific for rhinovirus and respiratory syncytial virus antigens in children and adults

Marion Mauclin  1 , Alicia Guillien  1 , Katarzyna Niespodziana  2 , Anne Boudier  1   3 , Thomas Schlederer  2 , Maja Bajic  2   4 , Peter Errhalt  4 , Kristina Borochova  2 , Isabelle Pin  1 , Frédéric Gormand  5 , Raphaël Vernet  6 , Jean Bousquet  7 , Emmanuelle Bouzigon  6 , Rudolf Valenta  2   8 , Valérie Siroux  1
Affiliations

Association between asthma and IgG levels specific for rhinovirus and respiratory syncytial virus antigens in children and adults

Marion Mauclin et al. J Allergy Clin Immunol Glob. .

Abstract

Background: Viral infections in childhood, especially to rhinovirus (RV) and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), are associated with asthma inception and exacerbation. However, little is known about the role of RV- and RSV-specific antibodies in childhood versus adult asthma.

Objective: We sought to investigate associations between RV- and RSV-specific IgG levels and asthma phenotypes in children and adults.

Methods: The analysis included 1771 samples from participants of the Epidemiological Study on the Genetics and Environment of Asthma (530 children; age [mean ± SD], 11.1 ± 2.8, and 1241 adults; age [mean ± SD], 43.4 ± 16.7, among whom 274 and 498 had ever asthma, respectively). RSV- and RV-specific IgG levels were determined using microarrayed virus-derived antigens and peptides. Cross-sectional associations between standardized RSV- and RV-specific IgG levels and asthma phenotypes were estimated by multiple regression models.

Results: In children, ever asthma was associated with higher IgG levels specific to RV, especially to RV-A and RV-C, and to RSV (adjusted odds ratios [95% CI] for a 1 - SD increase in IgG levels were 1.52 [1.16-1.99], 1.42 [1.10-1.83], and 1.24 [0.99-1.54], respectively). These associations were stronger for moderate to severe asthma than for mild asthma. Conversely in adults, ever asthma was associated with lower RV-A, RV-B, and RV-C IgG levels (adjusted odds ratios [95% CI] were 0.86 [0.74-0.99], 0.83 [0.73-0.95], and 0.85 [0.73-0.99], respectively).

Conclusions: Our results suggest that the association between respiratory virus-specific antibody levels and asthma varies during life, with asthma associated with higher levels of IgG to RSV, RV-A, and RV-C in children and lower levels of IgG responses to RV-A/B/C in adults.

Keywords: Asthma; adults; children; epidemiology; respiratory syncytial virus; rhinovirus; virus-specific IgG levels.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

This study was supported in part by NIRVANA (grant no. ANR-19-CE36-0005) and by the Danube Allergy Research Cluster Program (DARC-ARC 2.0) of the country of Lower Austria. Disclosure of potential conflict of interest: R. Valenta has received research grants from Worg Pharmaceuticals, HVD Biotech, and Viravaxx; and serves as a consultant for Viravaxx and Worg. The rest of the authors declare that they have no relevant conflicts of interest.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1
Design of the study. Flowchart of the study population indicating the number of subjects with valid IgG measures in EGEA1 and EGEA2 populations.
Fig 2
Fig 2
Antibody levels specific to RSV, RV-A, RV-B, and RV-C according to the ever asthma status (in children in EGEA1 and in adults in EGEA2). Shown are distributions of virus-specific IgG levels presented as median and interquartile ranges and expressed in fluorescence intensity values (y-axes). IgG data are demonstrated as boxplots for subjects without (orange) or with (blue) asthma in EGEA1 (children) and in EGEA2 (adults) subpopulations (x-axes).
Fig 3
Fig 3
Association study of ever asthma with RSV- and RV-specific IgG levels in the whole population and after stratification according to allergic sensitization (in children in EGEA1 and in adults in EGEA2). Multivariate associations between ever asthma and RSV- and RV-specific IgG levels in children and adults, in all individuals, and in subgroups of allergic sensitized and nonsensitized individuals. Models, accounting for random effect on family, were adjusted in EGEA1 on age, sex, body mass index, and season of blood sample and further adjusted in EGEA2 on tobacco active smoking. For the model in the whole population, allergic sensitization was added as a cofactor.
Supplementary Figure E1A
Supplementary Figure E1A
Beeswarm plots of RSV- and RV-specific antibody levels, in children (part A, EGEA1, n=530), and in adults (part B, EGEA2, n=1241). Distributions of virus-specific IgG data presented as median and interquartile range of the calibrated and corrected for the background level values (before normalization) and expressed in FI.
Supplementary Figure E1B
Supplementary Figure E1B
Beeswarm plots of RSV- and RV-specific antibody levels, in children (part A, EGEA1, n=530), and in adults (part B, EGEA2, n=1241). Distributions of virus-specific IgG data presented as median and interquartile range of the calibrated and corrected for the background level values (before normalization) and expressed in FI.
Supplementary Figure E2A
Supplementary Figure E2A
SI Figure E2: Distribution of RV-specific and RSV-specific IgG levels before and after the normalization, in children (part A) and in adults (part B). The ordered quantile normalization was applied to the whole population composed of both children and adults.
Supplementary Figure E2B
Supplementary Figure E2B
SI Figure E2: Distribution of RV-specific and RSV-specific IgG levels before and after the normalization, in children (part A) and in adults (part B). The ordered quantile normalization was applied to the whole population composed of both children and adults.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. GBD Chronic Respiratory Disease Collaborators Prevalence and attributable health burden of chronic respiratory diseases, 1990–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017. Lancet Respir Med. 2020;8:585–596. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Nurmagambetov T., Kuwahara R., Garbe P. PRS26 total economic burden of asthma in the United States. Value Health. 2019;22:S354. - PubMed
    1. Miller R.L., Grayson M.H., Strothman K. Advances in asthma: new understandings of asthma’s natural history, risk factors, underlying mechanisms, and clinical management. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2021;148:1430–1441. - PubMed
    1. Sallard E., Schult F., Baehren C., Buedding E., Mboma O., Ahmad-Nejad P., et al. Viral infection and respiratory exacerbation in children: results from a local German pediatric exacerbation cohort. Viruses. 2022;14:491. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Hansel T.T., Tunstall T., Trujillo-Torralbo M.B., Shamji B., del-Rosario A., Dhariwal J., et al. A comprehensive evaluation of nasal and bronchial cytokines and chemokines following experimental rhinovirus infection in allergic asthma: increased interferons (IFN-γ and IFN-λ) and type 2 inflammation (IL-5 and IL-13) EBioMedicine. 2017;19:128–138. - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources