¹Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Division, Victorial Johnson Center for Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Research, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA

Correspondence: Dr NF Voelkel, Internal Medicine/Pulmonary, Virginia Commonwealth University, 1101 E Marshall Street, Sanger Hall, 7th floor, room 7-020, Box 980456, Richmond, VA 23298, USA. E-mail: nvoelkel@mcvh-vcu.edu

Received 16 March 2009; Revised 13 May 2009; Accepted 24 May 2009; Published online 23 June 2009.

Abstract

A hypothesis is presented that asthma is not only an airway disease, but that the disease involves the entire lung, and that the chronicity of asthma and asthma exacerbations can perhaps be explained if one considers asthma as a systemic disease. Increased lung—not only airway—vascularity may be the result of the action of angiogenesis factors, such as vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P). A bone-marrow lung axis can be postulated as one element of the systemic nature of the asthma syndrome, in which the inflamed lung emits chemotactic signals, which the bone marrow responds to by releasing cells that contribute to lung angiogenesis. A molecular model of the pathobiology of asthma can be built by connecting hypoxia-inducible transcription factor-1 alpha, VEGF S1P, and bone-marrow precursor cell mobilization and acknowledging that angiogenesis is part of the inflammatory response.