EDITORIAL article
Front. Allergy
Sec. Rhinology
This article is part of the Research TopicRhinitis and pollutionView all 5 articles
Editorial: Pollution, Adjuvants, and the Expanding Interface of Airway Allergy
Provisionally accepted
- 1Universidade Federal do Parana Hospital de Clinicas, Curitiba, Brazil
- 2Universidad Catolica de Salta, Salta, Argentina
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show how pollution acts not only as an irritant or trigger, but as a true biological amplifier of sensitization -a concept with both historical and modern mechanistic foundations.Shusterman reconstructs the intellectual lineage of the pollutant-adjuvant concept "From Allergy versus Irritation to Adjuvancy: Lessons from History". Beginning with Japanese and Californian studies from the 1980s, he recounts how diesel exhaust particles enhanced allergen-specific IgE responses and even induced sensitization to new, otherwise innocuous antigens. Subsequent decades broadened this paradigm: second-hand smoke, wood-smoke, formaldehyde, phthalates, and ozone-limonene reaction products all demonstrated adjuvant-like effects.In "The Modern Scene: Pollution and Rhinitis as Markers of the Anthropocene", In conclusion, from diesel exhaust to indoor formaldehyde, from genomic susceptibility to climate-driven pollen shifts, these studies argue that pollution is an active participant in allergic diseases. The airway epithelium translates chemical and biological stressors into inflammation and sensitization. Understanding and mitigating these interactions will define the next decade of respiratory-allergy prevention.
Keywords: allergic rhinitis, Asthma, Exposome, pollution, Sick building syndrom
Received: 29 Oct 2025; Accepted: 03 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Chong-Neto and Gomez. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Herberto Jose Chong-Neto, h.chong@uol.com.br
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