Slugs and snails specifically secrete mucus to aid their locomotion. This mucus is the contact material between molluscan herbivores and plants. We have recently shown that the locomotion mucus of the slug Deroceras reticulatum contains salicylic acid (SA).(1) When applied to wounded leaves of Arabidopsis thaliana this mucus induces the activity of the SA-responsive pathogenesis related 1 (PR1)...

Airway mucus hypersecretion is a feature of a number of severe respiratory diseases, including asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and cystic fibrosis (CF). However, each disease has a different airway inflammatory response, with consequent, and presumably linked, mucus hypersecretory phenotype. Thus, it is possible that optimal treatment of the mucus hypersecretory element of...

AIM To investigate colonic mucus thickness in vivo in health and during experimental inflammatory bowel disease. METHODS Colitis was induced with 5% DSS in drinking water for 8 days prior to experiment, when the descending colonic mucosa of anesthetized rats was studied using intravital microscopy. Mucus thickness was measured with micropipettes attached to a micromanipulator. To assess the c...

OBJECTIVE The inner mucus layer in mouse colon normally separates bacteria from the epithelium. Do humans have a similar inner mucus layer and are defects in this mucus layer a common denominator for spontaneous colitis in mice models and ulcerative colitis (UC)? METHODS AND RESULTS The colon mucus layer from mice deficient in Muc2 mucin, Core 1 O-glycans, Tlr5, interleukin 10 (IL-10) and Slc...

Lophelia pertusa is the dominant reef-building organism of cold-water coral reefs, and is known to produce significant amounts of mucus, which could involve an important metabolic cost. Mucus is involved in particle removal and feeding processes, yet the triggers and dynamics of mucus production are currently still poorly described because the existing tools to study these processes are not app...

We introduce a mixture model intended to describe the dynamics of the mucus layer that wraps the gut mucosa. This model takes into account the fluid mechanics of the gut content, the inhomogeneous rheology that depends on the fluid composition, and the main physiological mechanisms that ensure the homoeostasis of the mucus layer. Numerical simulations, based on a finite volume approach, prove t...

A Cylindrical two layer fluid model for the transport of serous and mucus layer in the human trachea and the steady state condition due to cilia beating, some immotile cilia forming porous bed in serous sub -layer in contact with the epithelium and air motion by considering mucus as a visco-elastic fluid are studied. The effect of air-motion due to forced expiration and other processes is consi...

Airway surface liquid is comprised of mucus and an underlying, watery periciliary liquid (PCL). In contrast to the well-described axial transport of mucus along airway surfaces via ciliary action, theoretical analyses predict that the PCL is nearly stationary. Conventional and confocal microscopy of fluorescent microspheres and photoactivated fluorescent dyes were used with well-differentiated ...

In this study, the mobility of nanoparticles in mucus and similar hydrogels as model systems was assessed to elucidate the link between microscopic diffusion behavior and macroscopic penetration of such gels. Differences in particle adhesion to mucus components were strongly dependent on particle coating. Particles coated with 2 kDa PEG exhibited a decreased adhesion to mucus components, wherea...

The secreted, goblet cell-derived protein Clca1 (chloride channel regulator, calcium-activated-1) has been linked to diseases with mucus overproduction, including asthma and cystic fibrosis. In the intestine Clca1 is found in the mucus with an abundance and expression pattern similar to Muc2, the major structural mucus component. We hypothesized that Clca1 is required for the synthesis, structu...