{"id":52605,"date":"2026-01-11T06:56:30","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:56:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/2026\/01\/11\/distinct-phenotypes-and-repertoires-of-bronchoalveolar-and-airway-mucosal-t-cells-in-health-and-allergic-asthma-rod-a-rahimi\/"},"modified":"2026-01-11T06:56:30","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:56:30","slug":"distinct-phenotypes-and-repertoires-of-bronchoalveolar-and-airway-mucosal-t-cells-in-health-and-allergic-asthma-rod-a-rahimi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/2026\/01\/11\/distinct-phenotypes-and-repertoires-of-bronchoalveolar-and-airway-mucosal-t-cells-in-health-and-allergic-asthma-rod-a-rahimi\/","title":{"rendered":"Distinct phenotypes and repertoires of bronchoalveolar and airway mucosal T cells in health and allergic asthma. Rod A Rahimi"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><b>Mucosal Immunol<\/b>. 2026 Jan 8:S1933-0219(26)00001-2. doi: 10.1016\/j.mucimm.2026.01.001. Online ahead of print.<\/p>\n<p><b>ABSTRACT<\/b><\/p>\n<p>T cells play a central role in host protection against respiratory pathogens, but a maladaptive T cell response can lead to pulmonary diseases. Previous studies have examined T cells from the lungs captured via bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL), endobronchial brushings, or biopsies. However, whether these different approaches are capturing distinct T cell phenotypes and\/or clonotypes remains unclear. Here, using single cell RNA- and T cell receptor (TCR)-sequencing, we report unique phenotypes and clonotypes of T cells isolated via BAL versus endobronchial brushings in healthy controls (HCs) and allergic asthmatics (AAs). The most significant difference in T cell subset abundance between AAs and HCs was the enrichment of CD4 T helper type 2 (T<sub>H<\/sub>2) cells when comparing endobronchial brush samples (OR = 20.8, P = 0.004), but not when examining BAL (OR = 1.8, P = 0.38), indicating differences in the T cell subsets captured from the BAL versus airway mucosa. In further support of this observation, comparing the BAL and brush T cells across all subjects revealed an up-regulation of resident-memory T (T<sub>RM<\/sub>) cell markers (i.e. ITGAE, CD69) in brush T cells in both CD4 and CD8 lineages. In contrast, BAL CD8 and CD4 T cells exhibited an enriched type I and II interferon signature compared to brush T cells. We validated these findings by generating an independent cohort from publicly available single cell RNA-seq data of BAL and brush T cells. Lastly, leveraging the paired samples from our derivation cohort, we performed TCR repertoire analysis, revealing that brush T cells contained expanded TCR clones that were in low abundance or absent in the BAL. Expanded T cell clones from the brush expressed high levels of T<sub>RM<\/sub> cell markers, suggesting the airway mucosa is enriched for T<sub>RM<\/sub> cells with unique TCR specificity. In sum, sampling T cells via BAL versus airway brushings yielded distinct T cell phenotypes and clonotypes with important implications for future research in lung immunology.<\/p>\n<p>PMID:<a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/41519381\/?utm_source=SimplePie&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_content=101299742&amp;ff=20260111005629&amp;v=2.18.0.post22+67771e2\">41519381<\/a> | DOI:<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.mucimm.2026.01.001\">10.1016\/j.mucimm.2026.01.001<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mucosal Immunol. 2026 Jan 8:S1933-0219(26)00001-2. doi: 10.1016\/j.mucimm.2026.01.001. Online ahead of print. ABSTRACT T cells play a central role in host protection against respiratory pathogens, but a maladaptive T cell response can lead to pulmonary diseases. Previous studies have examined T cells from the lungs captured via bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL), endobronchial brushings, or biopsies. However, whether &#8230; <a title=\"Distinct phenotypes and repertoires of bronchoalveolar and airway mucosal T cells in health and allergic asthma. Rod A Rahimi\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/2026\/01\/11\/distinct-phenotypes-and-repertoires-of-bronchoalveolar-and-airway-mucosal-t-cells-in-health-and-allergic-asthma-rod-a-rahimi\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Distinct phenotypes and repertoires of bronchoalveolar and airway mucosal T cells in health and allergic asthma. Rod A Rahimi\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mucosal-immunology","category-publicaciones"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52605\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}