Airway smooth muscle and bronchospasm: Fluctuating, fluidizing, freezing

Bronchospasm and its biophysical basis in airway smooth muscle

Airways hyperresponsiveness is a cardinal feature of asthma but remains unexplained. In asthma, the airway smooth muscle cell is the key end-effector of bronchospasm and acute airway narrowing, but in just the past five years our understanding of the relationship of responsiveness to muscle biophysics has dramatically changed. It has become well established, for example, that muscle length is e...

Airway smooth muscle relaxation.

Bronchodilators are important agents in the treatment of asthma and chronic obstructive airways disease. Beta agonists, theophyllines, and antimuscarinic agents are the main drugs in current use, but others are under investigation. Although other actions may be important, these drugs produce bronchodilation either by a direct effect on airway smooth muscle or by inhibiting neural pathways. As o...

Airway smooth muscle and asthma.

The airway smooth muscle is the key determinant of airway narrowing in asthma but its function in the absence of disease is unknown. Evidence for an intrinsic abnormality in the muscle in asthma is only just emerging. The airway smooth muscle is not merely a contractile cell, but also one which determines the composition of, and interacts with the extracellular matrix, and which may participate...

Halothane increases smooth muscle protein phosphatase in airway smooth muscle.

BACKGROUND Halothane relaxes airway smooth muscle, in part, by decreasing the force produced for a given intracellular [Ca(2+)] (i.e., Ca(2+) sensitivity) during muscarinic stimulation, an effect produced by a decrease in regulatory myosin light-chain (rMLC) phosphorylation. The authors tested the hypothesis that halothane reduces rMLC phosphorylation during muscarinic stimulation at constant i...

Human Airway Smooth Muscle Cell