Mucolytics are medicines that modulate mucus production and decrease mucus viscosity. Their mucus thinning effects may improve mucociliary transport and thereby facilitate expectoration of mucus out of the distal bronchial tree [1]. Improved clearance and expectoration of mucus can prevent mucus plugging of small airways and may theoretically improve gas exchange and lessen the probability of p...

BACKGROUND Mucus stasis in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a significant contributor to morbidity and mortality. Potentiators of cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) activity pharmacologically enhance CFTR function; ivacaftor is one such agent approved to treat CF patients with the G551D-CFTR gating mutation. CFTR potentiators may also be useful for other d...

OBJECTIVE To characterise and compare the in vitro transport properties of respiratory mucoid secretion in individuals with no lung disease and in stable patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and bronchiectasis. METHODOLOGY Samples of mucus were collected, from 21 volunteers presenting no lung disease who had undergone surgery, from 10 patients presenting chronic COPD, an...

BACKGROUND Active sodium absorption is the dominant mechanism of ion transport in airway epithelium, but its role in pulmonary physiology and airway host defense is unknown. To address this question, we studied the function of airway epithelial cells and determined the frequency of pulmonary symptoms in patients with systemic pseudohypoaldosteronism, a salt-losing disorder caused by loss-of-fun...

Objective: To investigate the sinus swelling side effect on maxillary sinus cyst of nasal mucosa cilia. Methods: 34 cases of maxillary sinus cyst patients (treatment group), mean age (25.5 ± 2.2) years old; the control group was 30 healthy persons, the average age was(31.8 ± 9.1), treatment group oral sinus Xiaozhong decoction, and the control group before treatment, 30 days to observe the vari...

PURPOSE To assay the effects of cyclosporin A on mucus secretion from goblet cells and on mucociliary transport in situ in rats. METHODS Twenty-one male Wistar rats were assigned to 3 groups: control (n = 5), saline (n = 8), and cyclosporin A (n = 8). After 30 days of drug therapy, the rats were killed, and the lungs were removed from the thoracic cavity. Mucus samples were collected, and the...

Pulmonary mucociliary clearance is an essential defense mechanism against bacteria and particulate matter. Mucociliary dysfunction is an important feature of obstructive lung diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, cystic fibrosis, and bronchiectasis. This dysfunction in airway clearance is associated with accelerated loss of lung function in patients with obstructive lu...

The present study combined video confocal laser microscopy (1) and tissue reflectance and autofluorescence to visualize mucus position and mucociliary transport in excised living gill tissue from the blue mussel Mytilus edulis. Rafts of mucus and embedded particles were transported atop a periciliary space traversed by frontal cilia, which engaged the mucus layer and moved it during the effecti...

Clearance mechanisms are an integral part of pulmonary defense, serving to rid the lungs of inhaled particles that deposit upon airway surfaces. This is accomplished by mucociliary transport in conducting airways and to a large extent by alveolar macrophages in the respiratory region. This paper compares the effects of acute exposure to sulfuric acid (H2SO4), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), or ozone (O...

Multi-ciliated airway cells (MCACs) play a role in mucociliary clearance of the lung. However, the efficient induction of functional MCACs from human pluripotent stem cells has not yet been reported. Using carboxypeptidase M (CPM) as a surface marker of NKX2-1(+)-ventralized anterior foregut endoderm cells (VAFECs), we report a three-dimensional differentiation protocol for generating proximal ...