The fact that some proteins were only upregulated by LPS during disease exacerbation suggests that peripheral neutrophils might have been primed by the antigenic exposure, and several of these proteins were previously associated with asthma pathogenesis (including ADAM metallopeptidase domain 17 [56], formin-like protein 1 [57] and myristoylated alanine-rich C-kinase substrate (MARCKS)). This evidence concerns the gene ADAM17 and asthma.