In asthma, airway epithelium remodeling can already be detected during childhood, and epithelial cells are more susceptible to virus and oxidative stress. Their exact role in natural history and severity of children allergic respiratory disease remains however surprisingly unexplored. The aim of the study was to analyze dysfunctions of epithelium in dust mite allergic respiratory disease (rhinitis ± asthma) in children.

Expression profilings of nasal epithelial cells collected by brushing were performed on Affymetrix Hugene 1.0 ST arrays. All allergic patients were sensitized to dust mite. 19 patients had an isolated allergic rhinitis (AR). 14 patients had AR associated with asthma. Patients were compared to 12 controls, their severity and control being assessed according to NAEPP and ARIA criteria. Infections by respiratory viruses were excluded by real-time PCR measurements. Each condition was performed in triplicates: total of 21 samples.

Presence of allergic rhinitis or asthma. Respiratory viruses infection excluded the participants.

12 primary cultures of human nasal epithelial cells stimulated with either interleukin (IL)-4, IL-13, interferon (IFN)-alpha, IFN-beta or IFN-gamma, or during in vitro differentiation.

Gene expression signatures of nasal brushings from children with dust mite-allergic rhinitis, associated or not associated with controlled or uncontrolled asthma. Supervised learning and unsupervised clustering were used to predict the different subgroups of patients and define altered signalling pathways.

This dataset is relevant to dust mite allergy and asthma.