Materials and Methods
HUMAN STUDIES
The present study is part of the prospective study PreDicta (Post-infectious immune reprogramming and its association with persistence and chronicity of respiratory allergic diseases). The working package 1 (WP1) relates to studies in pre-school children with and without asthma. The study WP1 in Erlangen was approved by the local Ethics Committee of the Universitätsklinikum Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (Re-No 4435) and it is registered in German Clinical Trials Register (www.germanctr.de: DRKS00004914). Parents/ guardians of all participants gave their informed consent. Two cohorts of pre-school children (age 4-6 years) with and without asthma were analysed (control children n=22 and asthma children n=24). The recruitment of the subjects, inclusion and exclusion criteria as well as the timescale for clinical visits and data collection along with the clinical aspects and characteristics were previously described6, 18,19.