Researchers at Columbia University and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals mapped immune responses in tissues from organ donors who died of fatal asthma, finding disruptions across both respiratory and intestinal tracts. Nature Communications published the peer-reviewed study on September 5, 2026. While asthma is an immune-mediated lung disease that constricts airways and turns fatal in rare cases, the cellular mechanisms driving severe attacks have remained poorly understood.
The study profiled lymphoid organs, lungs, and intestines from donors who died of fatal asthma, evaluating them against donors who died of unrelated causes with or without an asthma history. Donors who died of fatal asthma showed elevated plasma IgE levels as well as enhanced and aberrant immune activity in mucosal-associated lymph nodes and the lungs. In both gut-associated and lung-associated lymph nodes, those donors displayed increased memory T and B cells alongside a decrease in regulatory T cells with age.
In lung tissue, the fatal asthma cases exhibited higher numbers of Th1 and Th2 resident memory cells. The researchers also recorded increased links between immune reactions in the gut and the lungs relative to control donors, showing that fatal episodes involve disrupted immune homeostasis across multiple mucosal sites.
LiveOnNY transplant coordinators facilitated access to the human donor tissues, and Dr. Lauren Cohn evaluated the manuscript. Funding for the study included support from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and National Institutes of Health grant AI106697 awarded to Donna L. Farber. Three co-authors—Andrea Vecchione, Amanda Atanasio, and Regeneron officer Jamie M. Orengo—held employment and stock or stock options in Regeneron during the project.
