Showing papers by "Serpil C. Erzurum published in 1996"

Quantitative assessment of the epithelial and inflammatory cell populations in large airways of normals and individuals with cystic fibrosis.

Abstract: Nasal and bronchial brushings and bronchial biopsies were evaluated from patients with cystic fibrosis (CF) and from normal subjects to quantify epithelial and inflammatory cell types. Epithelial in both groups were dominated by ciliated cells. The relative proportions of epithelial cells recovered by brushing and biopsy were similar, but with more basal cells from biopsies than from brushings. In nasal brushings, the numbers and percentages of epithelial subtypes were similar in both groups. In bronchial brushings, the number of recovered cells was 2.5-fold increased in the CF group compared with that in the normal group because of large numbers of neutrophils. The proportion of ciliated cells was lower in the CF group than in the normal group. Thus, even though the CF transmembrane conductance regulator mutations are expressed similarly in the nasal and bronchial epithelium in CF, the consequences are different, with little inflammation and no changes in the proportions of epithelial cells in the nasal epithelium, compared with marked neutrophil inflammation on the epithelial surface and significant changes in epithelial populations in the large airways. Airway brushing permits repetitive evaluation of the airway epithelium in CF, a useful methodology in the assessment of new therapies for this disorder.

Surfactant suppresses NF-kappa B activation in human monocytic cells.

Abstract: In addition to biophysical properties, pulmonary surfactant has immunomodulatory activity. We previously demonstrated that both synthetic (Exosurf) and modified natural surfactant (Survanta) downregulated endotoxin-stimulated inflammatory c ytokine mRNA levels and protein products (tumor necrosis factor-alpha [TNF], interleukin-1-beta [IL-1], interleukin-6 [IL-6]) in human alveolar macrophages. In this study, we report that both Exosurf and Survanta suppress TNF mRNA and secretion (85 +/- 4% mean percent inhibition +/- SEM by Exosurf; 71 +/- 6% by Survanta) by endotoxin-stimulated THP-1, a human monocytic cell line. Because surfactant downregulated inflammatory cytokine production similarly in both normal human alveolar macrophages and the THP-1 cell line, we used this cell line to investigate whether surfactant affected transcriptional mechanisms. Specifically, we examined nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-kappa B) activation because it is crucial in transcriptional regulation of many inflammatory cytokine gene...