Research Finds cAMP Is Highly Elevated In Blood Of People With Asthma

HCPlive (1/16, Johnson) reports, “New research has found that cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) is highly elevated in the blood of people with asthma, enabling diagnosis and possibly severity determination with a simple blood test.” One investigator said, “What we discovered is a specific transporter, a protein on the membrane of airway smooth muscle cells, allows cAMP to leak into the blood. ... For decades, we believed that an enzyme called phosphodiesterase was the critical factor in decreasing cAMP. We now refute that and say this transporter simply leaks it out.” The findings were published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation.