Liposomes for HIV prophylaxis.

There are approximately 33.4 million adults living with HIV worldwide of which an estimated 15.7 million are women.

Mechanical compression attenuates normal human bronchial epithelial wound healing.

Background: Airway narrowing associated with chronic asthma results in the transmission of injurious compressive forces to the bronchial epithelium and promotes the release of pro-inflammatory mediators and the denudation of the bronchial epithelium. While the individual effects of compression or denudation are well characterized, there is no data to elucidate how these cells respond to the application of mechanical compression in the presence of a compromised epithelial layer.

Methods: Accordingly, differentiated normal human bronchial epithelial cells were exposed to one of four conditions: 1) unperturbed control cells, 2) single scrape wound only, 3) static compression (6 hours of 30 cmH2O), and 4) 6 hours of static compression after a scrape wound.

Nitric oxide gas phase release in human small airway epithelial cells.

Background: Asthma is a chronic airway inflammatory disease characterized by an imbalance in both Th1 and Th2 cytokines. Exhaled nitric oxide (NO) is elevated in asthma, and is a potentially useful non-invasive marker of airway inflammation. However, the origin and underlying mechanisms of intersubject variability of exhaled NO are not yet fully understood.

Airway epithelium stimulates smooth muscle proliferation.

Communication between the airway epithelium and stroma is evident during embryogenesis, and both epithelial shedding and increased smooth muscle proliferation are features of airway remodeling. Hence, we hypothesized that after injury the airway epithelium could modulate airway smooth muscle proliferation. Fully differentiated primary normal human bronchial epithelial (NHBE) cells at an air-liquid interface were co-cultured with serum-deprived normal primary human airway smooth muscle cells (HASM) using commercially available Transwells.

IL-13 induces a bronchial epithelial phenotype that is profibrotic.

Background: Inflammatory cytokines (e.g. IL-13) and mechanical perturbations (e.