Omics approaches to understand airway inflammation in bronchiectasis

Bronchiectasis is characterised by chronic airway inflammation, leading to progressive lung damage. The inflammation is predominantly characterised by neutrophils, although the epithelium, macrophages and T cells also clearly contribute to the microenvironment. Bronchiectasis is heterogeneous, but the reported profiles of cytokines/chemokines and inflammatory mediators in bronchiectasis are surprisingly consistent and unaffected by aetiology. Bacterial infection has been demonstrated to be the key driver of neutrophil recruitment, with data also suggesting that bacterial clearance can achieve resolution of infla…