BACKGROUND Acute lung injury is an important cause of respiratory failure in the critically ill patient. It is caused by damage to the alveolar barrier with subsequent alveolar flooding leading to the development of refractory hypoxaemia. beta Agonists stimulate alveolar fluid clearance in animal models of lung injury. In a clinical trial (BALTI-1), intravenous beta agonists reduced extravascul...

BACKGROUND Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a progressive and lethal disorder characterized by fibroproliferation and excessive accumulation of extracellular matrix in the lung. METHODS AND FINDINGS Using oligonucleotide arrays, we identified osteopontin as one of the genes that significantly distinguishes IPF from normal lungs. Osteopontin was localized to alveolar epithelial cells in ...

The alveolar epithelium responds to injury by upregula¬ tion of various specialized functions: proliferation and differentiation of epithelial cells, maintenance of electroyte and water balance, secretion of surfactant and associated proteins, and metabolism of xenobiotics and toxins. Genes upregulated during lung epithelial injury caused by a variety of environmental agents may serve as sensit...

BACKGROUND Alveolar epithelial cells are known as progenitor cells for the restoration from the damage in the lung. Calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) has been reported to play an important role in the proliferation of various types of epithelial and endothelial cells. We investigated the effects of CGRP on the proliferation of alveolar epithelial cells in vitro and in vivo. METHODS A549 ...

Interstitial lung diseases are thought to be associated with the infiltration of activated T-lymphocytes. To induce an effective immune response, antigen-presenting cells have to not only present antigenic peptide with major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules to T-lymphocytes but also express B7 molecules. Therefore, the expression of B7-1, B7-2 and class II MHC molecules was investigat...

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) contribute to alveolar cell death in acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and we previously demonstrated that NOX1-derived ROS contributed to hyperoxia-induced alveolar cell death in mice. The study investigates whether NOX1 expression is modulated in epithelial cells concomitantly to cell death and associated to STAT3 signaling in the exudative phase of ARDS...

Cellular senescence is a state of irreversible growth arrest induced either by telomere shortening (replicative senescence) or by telomere-independent signals (stress-induced senescence). The alveolar epithelium is often injured by a variety of inhaled toxins, including cigarette smoke (CS). In the present study, we investigated whether exposure to CS induces senescence of alveolar epithelial c...