The research team of Professor Park Jong-hwan (Department of Veterinary Medicine) is attracting attention by identifying the key signaling mechanisms that cause allergic rhinitis.

According to CNU, the research team Professor Park has participated in confirmed that the methyltransferase PRMT1 was increased in the nasal mucosa of patients with allergic rhinitis and in mouse tests. The research was conducted through a joint research project with Professor Yoon Ju-heon of the Department of Otorhinolaryngology of the Yonsei University Severance Hospital.

A related research paper was published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (impact index 10.228), an international journal of allergy and clinical immunology.

In this paper, the joint research team found that PRMT1 is increased through MAPKs in nasal epithelial cells by house mite extract and interleukin-4 (IL-4), and this has been shown to cause allergic rhinitis by inducing the production of key molecules that cause allergic inflammation, TSLP, IL-25, and IL-33.

In particular, by presenting the fact that AMI-1, an inhibitor of PRMT1, shows the results of suppressing allergic rhinitis in mice, it is expected to accelerate the development of treatment methods for allergic rhinitis.

The first author of this study is Park Ji-yeon, a student in the integrated MA and Doctoral Program who is supported by the BK21+ project of the College of Veterinary Medicine.