The main finding of this study is that IL-10 levels in NPAs at the time of hospitalization for severe RSV infection were highest in infants who developed physician diagnosed PBW in the year after infection. These data indicate that the local immune response in infants at the time of acute, severe RSV infection differentiates infants with and without subsequent development of chronic airway morbidity. High IL-10 levels during severe RSV infection early in life affect airway morbidity later in life. If this relationship is causal, inhibition of IL-10 production during acute infection may alter the incidence of PBW. Further research is needed to study this relationship. Our current results are consistent with our previous finding that the production of IL-10 by monocytes after RSV infection is higher in patients with recurrent wheezing in follow-up than patients without wheezing [
32]. Whether the different immune response at the time of RSV infection is the cause of physician diagnosed PBW or the consequence of a predefined susceptibility to infection is not yet known. Possibly, infants with higher IL-10 levels in NPA during acute RSV infection continue to have high levels of IL-10 during subsequent infections and develop more PBW.
Following candidate gene identification it is important to explore the functional consequences of the associated genetic variation [
46]. SNPs located in promoter regions may change gene expression by altering transcription factor binding sites or by other more subtle mechanisms. Perrey et al. introduced putative high, intermediate, and low IL-10 producing haplotypes for three different
IL10 promoter SNPs (rs1800896 (-1082G/A), rs1800871 (-819C/T), and rs1800872 (-592C/A) which is in complete linkage disequilibrium with rs1800871) [
47]. Many other studies reported associations of these SNPs with altered transcriptional regulation of IL-10 for varying diseases [
33,
48‐
55]. Heterozygosity of the
IL10 SNP rs1800872 was associated with increased resistance to severe RSV infection [
34,
39], suggesting that a balanced IL-10 response is required to reduce an excessive immune response, while allowing for a robust anti-viral immune response. However, no functional effect of this
IL10 SNP on the local immune response could be detected, i.e. the levels of IL-10 in NPAs were comparable among the different genotypes of RSV infected infants. Whether there is truly no functional consequence of this SNP in the promoter region of
IL10 during severe RSV infection is not known. We measured total IL-10 production in NPA irrespective of the source of IL-10, while there may be a cell type specific effect. Because protection against severe RSV infection was associated with heterozygosity of the
IL10 SNP, it may be difficult to observe a functional effect of this promoter SNP. Alternatively, our cohort was too small to detect subtle differences. Especially the group homozygous for the minor allele consisted only of 17 infants. In literature, an advantage of the rs1800872 A allele has been associated to different infectious diseases, however, a specific heterozygous advantage of the CA genotype is not mentioned. Replication of this association has not been published to date. Both Wilson et al. and Helminen et al. reported no associations between eight SNPs in
IL10 and RSV bronchiolitis [
56,
57]. However, in a subgroup analysis, two
IL10 SNPs were associated with the need for mechanical ventilation [
56]. In a small cohort, Gentile et al. showed that more RSV infected infants with a low IL-10 producing haplotype developed pneumonia compared to infants with an intermediate or high IL-10 producing haplotype [
58]. Nevertheless, actual cytokine concentrations were not measured, and in another study with experimentally RSV challenged adults no correlation between haplotype and cytokine levels was observed [
58,
59]. As we analyzed only the SNP associated with severe RSV infection instead of three
IL10 promoter SNPs needed to determine the haplotype, we could not compare our data to these studies [
58,
59]. Replication of findings from genetic association studies is required to exclude false positive associations. It has been difficult to replicate associations with severe RSV infection due to small sample size in studies, the related lack of power and the phenotypic heterogeneity between studies [
60,
61]. Therefore, more independent replication studies should be performed to confirm detected associations.