TSLP

Class

Anti-TSLP monoclonal antibody

Thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP) is a cytokine released by epithelial cells lining the airways, skin, and gut in response to irritants, allergens, viruses, and other environmental triggers. It acts as an early alarm signal, activating dendritic cells, mast cells, and lymphoid cells that in turn drive downstream type 2 immune responses, including production of interleukin-4, interleukin-5, and interleukin-13. Because TSLP sits near the top of this inflammatory cascade, blocking it can dampen multiple downstream effector pathways at once rather than neutralizing a single one, which distinguishes this approach from therapies aimed at individual interleukins. Anti-TSLP monoclonal antibodies bind circulating TSLP and prevent it from engaging its receptor complex on target cells, reducing initiation of the allergic and eosinophilic inflammatory cascade. This mechanism is of broad interest in diseases where epithelial barrier disruption and chronic type 2 inflammation contribute to pathology, most notably asthma, but also atopic dermatitis, chronic rhinosinusitis, and other allergic or eosinophilic conditions. Because TSLP acts upstream of both classical allergic (type 2 high) and less classical inflammatory phenotypes, TSLP-targeted therapy has been of interest for patient populations that do not respond well to therapies aimed narrowly at eosinophilic pathways.