Asthma is a major public health challenge with acute and chronic respiratory diseases manifested by bronchial hyper-reactivity, inflammation, and mucus production. Environmental factors such as house dust mites, pollen, proteases and other allergens cause allergic asthma. The molecular mechanisms of asthma development include innate and adaptive immune responses triggered by chemokines and inflammatory cytokines. Neuro-endocrine factors and the gut-lung-brain axis as well as minor cell populations such as Tuft and MAIT cells as well as NKT play a regulatory role. The microbial composition in the gut and lung as well as metabolites contributes to the severity of asthma. Stress and viral infection exacerbate asthma and other factors are searched, especially in severe asthma. Inhaled steroids, PDE inhibitors, beta-adrenergic agonists and cholinergic antagonists such as tiotropium are routinely used to treat asthmatic patients. Bio-therapies neutralising inhibiting cytokines by mAb, but also ProTac, siRNA and epigenetic modulation represent highly targeted therapies under further development. Allergic and non-allergic asthma are undergoing great developments with innovation in patient care and insight into target proteins and pathways, and are a major motivation of the present Call for the special issue, aiming at new insights and discovery.

Keywords: Asthma, allergic asthma, cytokine networks, airway remodeling, innate and adaptive immune cells, severe asthma