Natural killer T cells regulate the development of asthma

Studies in mice, monkeys and humans suggest that invariant natural killer (iNK) T cells play a very important role in the pathogenesis of asthma, a heterogeneous disease associated with airway inflammation and airway hyper-reactivity. The requirement for iNK T cells in multiple mouse models of asthma is novel and surprising, challenging the prevailing dogma that CD4(+) T cells responding to environmental allergens are the key cell type in asthma. In this article, we examine the recent studies of iNK T cells and asthma, and discuss how different subsets of NK T cells function in different forms of asthma, including forms that are independent of adaptive immunity and Th2 cells. Together, these studies suggest that iNK T cells, which can interact with many other cell types including Th2 cells, eosinophils and neutrophils, provide a unifying pathogenic mechanism for many distinct forms of asthma.