The effects of vitamins C and B12 on human nasal ciliary beat frequency

Protective effects of inhaled antioxidants against air pollution-induced pathological responses

As the public health burden of air pollution continues to increase, new strategies to mitigate harmful health effects are needed. Dietary antioxidants have previously been explored to protect against air pollution-induced lung injury producing inconclusive results. Inhaled (pulmonary or nasal) administration of antioxidants presents a more promising approach as it could directly increase antioxidant levels in the airway surface liquid (ASL), providing protection against oxidative damage from air pollution. Several antioxidants have been shown to exhibit antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-microbial properties in in vitro and in vivo models of air pollution exposure; however, little work has been done to translate these basic research findings into practice. This narrative review summarizes these findings and data from human studies using inhaled antioxidants in response to air pollution, which have produced positive results, indicating further investigation is warranted. In addition to human studies, cell and murine studies should be conducted using more relevant models of exposure such as air-liquid interface (ALI) cultures of primary cells and non-aqueous apical delivery of antioxidants and pollutants. Inhalation of antioxidants shows promise as a protective intervention to prevent air pollution-induced lung injury and exacerbation of existing lung disease.

Getting sweeter: new evidence for glucose transporters in specific cell types of the airway?

New technologies such as single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNAseq) has enabled identification of the mRNA transcripts expressed by individual cells. This review provides insight from recent scRNAseq studies on the expression of glucose transporters in the epithelial cells of the airway epithelium from trachea to alveolus. The number of studies analyzed was limited, not all reported the full range of glucose transporters and there were differences between cells freshly isolated from the airways and those grown in vitro. Furthermore, glucose transporter mRNA transcripts were expressed at lower levels than other epithelial marker genes. Nevertheless, these studies highlighted that there were differences in cellular expression of glucose transporters. GLUT1 was the most abundant of the broadly expressed transporters that included GLUT8, 10, and 13. GLUT9 transcripts were more common in basal cells and GLUT12 in ionocytes/ciliated cells. In addition to alveolar cells, SGLT1 transcripts were present in secretory cells. GLUT3 mRNA transcripts were expressed in a cell cluster that expressed monocarboxylate (MCT2) transporters. Such distributions likely underlie cell-specific metabolic requirements to support proliferation, ion transport, mucous secretion, environment sensing, and airway glucose homeostasis. These studies have also highlighted the role of glucose transporters in the movement of dehydroascorbic acid/vitamin C/myoinositol/urate, which are factors important to the innate immune properties of the airways. Discrepancies remain between detection of mRNAs, protein, and function of glucose transporters in the lungs. However, collation of the data from further scRNAseq studies may provide a better consensus and understanding, supported by qPCR, immunohistochemistry, and functional experiments.

Ciliary Videomicroscopy: A Long Beat from the European Respiratory Society Guidelines to the Recognition as a Confirmatory Test for Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia

Primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD) is a rare inherited ciliopathy in which respiratory cilia are stationary or dyskinetic. The clinical presentation of PCD is highly non-specific since it includes infections and disorders of the upper (otitis and rhinosinusitis) and lower (neonatal respiratory distress, bronchitis, pneumonia and bronchiectasis) airways, starting in early life. Clinical examination alone does not allow a PCD diagnosis, which relies on several concordant tests, since none are sensitive or specific enough alone. Despite being the most sensitive and specific test to diagnose PCD, digital high-speed videomicroscopy (DHSV) is not sufficiently standardized, preventing its use with complete confidence as a confirmatory diagnostic test for PCD, or its inclusion in a diagnostic algorithm. Since the 2017 ERS recommendations for PCD diagnosis, three main issues remain to be solved in order to optimize DHSV ciliary beating evaluation: the problem in defining an accurate sensitivity and specificity as there is no gold standard method to diagnose all PCD cases, a lack of standardization in the operating procedure for processing respiratory samples, and in the choice of measured parameters (self-operating or not). The development of new automated analysis approaches is promising and will require full clinical validation.

Probiotic Bifidobacterium lactis, anti-oxidant vitamin E/C and anti-inflammatory dha attenuate lung inflammation due to pm2.5 exposure in mice

The incidence of asthma and allergic diseases of the airways is constantly increasing, both in the industrialised and developing countries, due to harmful and excessive quantities of air pollution. Although some studies have shown an effect of dietary supplementation of specific nutrients (especially with anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties) in reducing airways inflammatory response, the results are not yet conclusive and the science is still at its infancy. Our hypothesis is that combining such nutrients could provide more benefits than using them alone. The aim of the research project proposed here is to investigate whether specific combinations of nutrients (docosahexanoic acid, vitamin C and E, and Bifidobacterium lactis strain BB-12®, included in an engineered diet) can act synergistically to reduce inflammation given by high level of air pollution. Beside the role of docosahexanoic acid, vitamins C and E on airways inflammatory disease, no study examined the effect of the supplementation of this probiotic strain in pathological conditions caused by air pollution so far. Herein we used a well-established in vivo model for the study of pollution effects, which consists in female BALB/c mice receiving by pharyngeal aspiration either a sham or a particulate matter with diameter <2.5 μm (PM 2.5) containing aerosol. Before treatment, mice were fed either a chow or a supplemented diet. By performing histological analyses and gene expression profiles on lung sections and serum measurement of the cytokine interleukin 10, we found that a specific combination of all the aforementioned nutrients rather than nutrients alone had a synergistic protective effect against PM2.5-induced inflammation. In conclusion, our study support that a supplemental nutritional intervention based on a combination of the probiotic B. lactis BB-12, the anti-oxidant vitamin C and E, and the anti-inflammatory docosahexanoic acid represents a rational option for alleviating air pollution-related lung inflammation.

The effect of drugs and other compounds on the ciliary beat frequency of human respiratory epithelium

BACKGROUND

Cilia in the human respiratory tract play a critical role in clearing mucus and debris from the airways. Their function can be affected by a number of drugs or other substances, many of which alter ciliary beat frequency (CBF). This has implications for diseases of the respiratory tract and nasal drug delivery. This article is a systematic review of the literature that examines 229 substances and their effect on CBF.

METHODS

MEDLINE was the primary database used for data collection. Eligibility criteria based on experimental design were established, and 152 studies were ultimately selected. Each individual trial for the substances tested was noted whenever possible, including concentration, time course, specific effect on CBF, and source of tissue.

RESULTS

There was a high degree of heterogeneity between the various experiments examined in this article. Substances and their general effects (increase, no effect, decrease) were grouped into six categories: antimicrobials and antivirals, pharmacologics, human biological products, organisms and toxins, drug excipients, and natural compounds/other manipulations.

CONCLUSION

Organisms, toxins, and drug excipients tend to show a cilioinhibitory effect, whereas substances in all other categories had mixed effects. All studies examined were in vitro experiments, and application of the results in vivo is confounded by several factors. The data presented in this article should be useful in future respiratory research and examination of compounds for therapeutic and drug delivery purposes.

Seminal superoxide dismutase activity and its relationship with semen quality and SOD gene polymorphism

PURPOSE

Superoxide dismutase (SOD) is an important component of antioxidative defense systems and plays an important role in protecting spermatozoa from oxidative damage. In this study, we assessed seminal SOD activity, its association with semen parameters, and also genetic and non-genetic factors contributing to the determination of SOD activity in infertile men.

METHODS

Semen samples were obtained from 435 male infertility patients. Sperm DNA damage levels were detected with the Tdt-mediated dUTP nick end labelling (TUNEL) assay. Four single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in SOD2 and SOD3 genes were genotyped using OpenArray platform.

RESULTS

We found that seminal SOD activity was positively associated with sperm concentration and overall motility, whereas inversely with sperm DNA fragmentation. In addition, infertile men with SOD2 rs4880 CC variants showed a low level of SOD activity when compared with TT carriers (Mean ± SD: 268.3 ± 102.3 and 342.8 ± 98.2, respectively, P = 0.005). Those who consumed vitamin C/E (≥3 times per week) had a significantly higher SOD activity level than those who did not (mean ± SD: 379.8 ± 93.3 and 332.2 ± 94.9, respectively, P = 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS

Seminal SOD activity and other factors influencing SOD activity play a role in determining sperm fertilization potential and male infertility.

The effect of topical corticosteroids, topical antihistamines, and preservatives on human ciliary beat frequency

BACKGROUND

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the corticosteroids, the antihistamines, and the preservatives benzalkonium chloride (BKC) and potassium sorbate (PS) in intranasal medications on human nasal epithelial ciliary beat frequency (CBF).

METHODS

Primary ciliated epithelial cell cultures from the human nasal mucosa of chronic sinusitis patients were established. Changes in CBF of epithelial cell cultures treated/untreated with intranasal medications or preservatives were assessed using high-speed digital imaging methods.

RESULTS

Budesonide caused a rapid but reversible ciliostasis and showed no ciliotoxic effect at 10% dilution. Fluticasone propionate induced an irreversible ciliostatic activity and showed a reversible decrease in CBF at 10% dilution. Azelastine hydrochloride and levocabastine hydrochloride both induced a dose-dependent and irreversible decrease in CBF, although the ciliotoxic effect was not evident at 5% dilution. BKC resulted in an irreversible ciliostasis at 0.005 or 0.01% concentrations, whereas PS did not show any change in CBF at 0.12 or 0.24% concentrations.

CONCLUSIONS

Crystalline BKC and BKC-containing intranasal medications, including fluticasone propionate, azelastine hydrochloride and levocabastine hydrochloride, but not PS or PS-containing intranasal budesonide spray, led to irreversible ciliostasis in human nasal epithelial cell cultures when applied at clinically relevant concentrations.