Kuo CHS, et al. - In this study performed on 81 moderate-to-severe asthma patients of the U-BIOPRED cohort, researchers investigated the genes related to airway remodeling and eosinophilic inflammation by analyzing the transcriptomic data from bronchial biopsies of patients. They found asthmatic biopsies demonstrated increased expression of MMP-10 and MET in bronchial epithelial cells and in subepithelial inflammatory and resident cells, as confirmed in immunohistochemical analysis. A 73-gene set characteristic of the high mucosal eosinophils (HE) compared to the low mucosal eosinophils (LE) group was also defined using less-stringent conditions. A positive correlation of genes including MET and MMP10, involved in extracellular matrix (ECM) organisation, with submucosal thickness was also seen. Two transcription factors, ETS-1 and SOX family proteins were identified that were found to be positively correlated to MMP10 and MET expression. Overall, submucosal eosinophilia was observed in relation to pathways of airway remodeling and cellular inflammation. A possibly important role of MET and MMP-10 in these processes was suggested.