TMPRSS2 and asthma: We examined the transcriptomic data obtained from three different compartments of airway cells, namely, bronchial brushings, bronchial biopsies and sputum-derived cells from patients with severe asthma compared to those with mild-to-moderate asthma and to non-asthmatic controls and analysed the expression of genes that encode for ACE2, TMPRSS2 and FURIN.