Conclusion Paragraph For Letter:
In this study, we tested two environmental exposure stimuli, bacterial
lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and house dust mite (HDM), in an in vitro model
of primary human bronchial epithelial cells (HBECs) from 6 individuals,
to identify differentially expressed genes using RNAseq analysis in
response to these exposures both individually and in combination. Our
findings illustrate that exposure mixtures increase the strength and
complexity of transcriptomic responses in HBECs as compared to
individual stimuli alone, and that asthmatic’s cells are more sensitive
to these stimuli, eliciting a greater number of differentially expressed
genes vs. controls. Our results provide a basis for future studies in
this area, such as the expansion of this in vitro model to test multiple
exposure combinations (i.e. the exposome) and their influence on
molecular signaling in the bronchial epithelium.