Group 2 Innate Lymphoid Cells in Allergic Airway Inflammation : Early Birds or Night Owls

ILC2s are essential for the immune response to helminth infections in the gut and in the lung and have been implicated in the immunopathology of several atopic diseases including asthma. They enhance type 2 immune responses due to their ability to secrete high levels of IL-5 and IL-13 as described.
In the experiments described in this thesis we aim to define the phenotype and to characterize the role and function of ILC2s in asthma using both robust HDM-induced allergic airway inflammation mouse models and clinical data derived from asthma patients. The field of ILC2s has not standardized the surface markers required to identify ILC2s and approaches often vary between research groups.