Pulmonary condensate: A promising source of proteomic biomarkers for non-invasive evaluation of pulmonary involvement in asthma and cystic fibrosis

Exhaled breath condensate (EBC) represents a rich source for countless biomarkers that can provide valuable information about respiratory as well as systemic diseases. Finding non-invasive methods for early detection of lung injury, inflamation and infectious complications in chronic diseases like Cystic fibrosis (CF) or bronchial asthma (AB) would be highly beneficial. We propose to establish EBC “breath-prints” revealing molecular signatures of pulmonary inflammation and specific respiratory bacterial infections of CF patients and AB. We hypothesize that the analysis of EBC can reveal biomarkers specific for severity of the inflammation and infection caused by opportunistic pathogens such as P. aeruginosa. With these breath-prints, we also propose to establish correlations between respiratory microbiota using traditional methods and CF lung disease severity. Together, our studies will advance the development and validation of EBC as a novel tool for the proper diagnosis of AB and monitoring of CF disease activity, treatment efficacy and diagnosis of opportunistic infections.