It is generally accepted that the gastric mucus layer provides a protective barrier between the lumen and the mucosa, shielding the mucosa from acid and digestive enzymes and preventing autodigestion of the stomach epithelium. However, the precise mechanisms that contribute to this protective function are still up for debate. In particular, it is not clear what physical processes are responsibl...

BACKGROUND The ability of lactobacilli to adhere to the surface of the intestine is an important functional characteristic which can largely determine the effective colonization of the intestinal tract by probiotics. The following study compares the adhesion efficiency of the twenty strains of Lactobacillus genus belonging to Casei group to the Caco-2 cells and gastrointestinal mucus. METHODS...

The conducting airways branch 20–25 times between the trachea and the alveoli as inhaled air passes from the relatively constricted nasal/tracheal passages to the large surface area of alveoli (70 m2), where gas exchange occurs. This branching anatomy leads to a surface area that expands greatly from proximal airways (e.g., third generation; ∼50 cm2) to distal airways (20th to 25th generation; ...

It is now almost 30 years since Heatley' first published his mathematical model of the mucus barrier to acid-pepsin attack. At that time, techniques were not available to evaluate the components of his model and the existence of a pH gradient across mucus gel, sustaining the cell surface at near neutral pH despite luminal acid, could not be confirmed. During the last decade advances in technolo...

Potassium is sometimes depleted in diseases of the intestine in which diarrhoea is a prominent symptom, such as idiopathic steatorrhoea (Lubran and McAllen, 1951) and ulcerative colitis (Posey and Bargen, 1950). Occasionally abnormal quantities of mucus are present in the stools in these conditions. It may occur in patients with villous tumours of the large bowel and is then almost always assoc...

Abstract The aim was to produce PEG-coated nanoparticles (NP-PEG), with mucus-permeating properties, for oral drug delivery purposes by using simple procedures and regulatory-approved compounds in order facilitate a potential clinical development. For this purpose, zein were prepared desolvation and, then, coated incubation PEG 35,000. resulting nanocarriers displayed mean size of about 200 nm ...

Blind loops prepared in the small intestines of fasted, MgSO4-treated rats were shown to provide a simple, consistent and inexpensive means of studying mucosal colonisation by Vibrio cholerae serogroup O1. When c. 2000 cfu were injected, the number of mucosa-associated V. cholerae in each loop increased by c. 5-6 orders of magnitude in 10-14 h, without enterotoxin-induced fluid production. Scan...

Fish epidermal mucus contains innate immune components, secreted by globlet cells that provide the primary defence against different pathogenic microbes and act as a barrier between fish and its immediate niche. The major function of mucus includes entrapment and sloughing of microbes. The mucus also contains many factors such as antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), lysozymes, lectins, proteases, etc...

One mechanism for airway closure in the lung is surface-tension-driven instability of mucus layer which lines wall. We study an axisymmetric viscoplastic Bingham liquid coating interior a rigid tube, simple model that takes into account yield stress mucus. An evolution equation thickness derived using long-wave theory, from we also derive simpler thin-film equation. In case show two branches ma...

Submucosal glands contribute to airway surface liquid (ASL), a film that protects all airway surfaces. Glandular mucus comprises electrolytes, water, the gel-forming mucin MUC5B, and hundreds of different proteins with diverse protective functions. Gland volume per unit area of mucosal surface correlates positively with impaction rate of inhaled particles. In human main bronchi, the volume of t...