• Sebastian Weiterer, Thomas Kohlen, Florian Veit, Lydia Sachs, Florian Uhle, Christoph Lichtenstern, Markus A Weigand, and Michael Henrich.
• Department of Anaesthesiology, Heidelberg University Hospital, Heidelberg, Germany.
• Plos One. 2015 Jan 1; 10 (11): e0143163.

BackgroundCiliary beating by respiratory epithelial cells continuously purges pathogens from the lower airways. Here we investigated the effect of the fungal cell wall polysaccharides Galactomannan (GM) and Zymosan (Zym) on the adrenergic activated particle transport velocity (PTV) of tracheal epithelium.MethodsExperiments were performed using tracheae isolated from male C57BL/6J mice. Transport velocity of the cilia bearing epithelial cells was measured by analysing recorded image sequences. Generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) were determined using Amplex Red reagents. PCR experiments were performed on isolated tracheal epithelium to identify adrenergic receptor mRNA.ResultsThe adrenergic receptors α1D, α2A, β1 and β2 have been identified in isolated tracheal epithelium. We found epinephrine responsible for an increase in PTV, which could only be reduced by selective β-receptor-inhibition. In addition, either GM or Zym prevented the epinephrine induced PTV increase. Furthermore, we observed a strong ROS generation evoked by GM or Zym. However, epinephrine induced increase in PTV recovered in the presence of GM and Zym after application of ROS scavengers.ConclusionBoth GM or Zym trigger reversible ROS generation in tracheal tissue leading to inhibition of the β-adrenergic increase in PTV.

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