ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the main methodological approaches that are used to study the molecular and cellular processes of respiratory disorders, mainly illustrated through their uses in asthma research. It emphasizes techniques aimed to examine a disease at the cellular and molecular levels, including the study of DNA, RNA, and proteins using asthma as a model when it is applicable. Asthma is one of the most common chronic inflammatory diseases that affects the airways. In the case where the reagent being used is an antibody that recognizes a particular molecule (i.e., antigen), specifically, it is called immunohistochemistry (IHC). Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) is commonly used to detect and measure the amount of an antigen of interest in biological fluid. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was developed by Kary Banks Mullis in 1985 to amplify short DNA sequences.
