Year: 2019
Type: article
Abstract: In health, the high-speed airflow associated with cough represents a vital backup mechanism for clearing accumulated mucus from our airways.However, alterations in the mucus layer in cystic fibrosis (CF) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) leads to the mucus layer adhered to the airway surfaces, representing the nidus of chronic lung infection.To understand what is different about diseased mucus and why cough clearance is defective, there is a need for techniques to quantify the strength of the interactions limiting the ability of airflow to strip mucus from the airway surface (i.e., adhesive strength) or tear mucus apart (i.e., cohesive strength).To overcome the issues with measuring these properties in a soft (i.e., low elastic modulus) mucus layer, we present here novel peel-testing technologies capable of quantifying the mucus adhesive strength on cultured airway cells and cohesive strength of excised mucus samples.While this protocol focuses on measurements of airway mucus, this approach can easily be adapted to measuring adhesive/cohesive properties of other soft biological materials.
Source: BIO-PROTOCOL
Institution: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Language: English
Subfield: Mechanics of Materials
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
Awards: G1152963880, Triangle Center for Excellence for Materials Research and Innovation: Programmable Assembly of Soft Matter, G1632105545, G37756661, Multiscale Biochemical/Biophysical Integration of Pulmonary Mucus Transport, G5804021996, G7164875514, Development of Novel Mycolytic Therapies for Lung Disease, EFRI CEE : Engineering Technologies to Determine Causal Relationships Between Chromatin Structure and Gene Regulation, The role of mucus and pulmonary surface interactions in lung defense, G85740837, UNC Cystic Fibrosis Research and Translation Core Center
OpenAlex ID: W2954847461