Research into naturally occurring antimicrobial substances has yielded effective treatments. One area of interest is peptides and proteins produced by invertebrates as part of their defence system, including the contents of mollusc mucus. Mucus produced by the African giant land snail, Achatina fulica has been reported to contain two proteins with broad-spectrum antibacterial activity. Mucus fr...

Adhesion of 3H-labeled Escherichia coli K-12(K88ab) to CD-1 mouse small intestine mucus and brush border preparations, immobilized on polystyrene, was studied. E. coli K12(K88ab) was shown to adhere readily to either crude mucus or brush border preparations, but not to bovine serum albumin. In contrast, the nearly isogenic E. coli K-12 strain, i.e., lacking the K88ab plasmid, did not bind well ...

Current methods for nasal spray formulations have been elementary evaluating the dripping characteristics of a formulation and have not assessed the behavior of the nasal formulation in the presence of varying types of mucus depending on the indication or diseased state. This research investigated the effects of nasal mucus on the dripping behavior of nasal formulations and focused on developin...

The potential role of airway interleukin-5 (IL-5) expression in eliciting mucus production was demonstrated in a pulmonary IL-5 transgenic mouse model (NJ.1726) in which naive transgenic mice display comparable levels of airway mucus relative to allergen-sensitized and -challenged wild-type mice. The intrinsic mucus accumulation of NJ.1726 was abolished in compound transgenic-gene knockout mice...

Spontaneous mucus clearance and the effect of forced expirations and coughing on mucus clearance were investigated in eight patients with chronic airflow obstruction and low elastic recoil pressure (emphysema group: mean FEV1 45% predicted) and in seven patients with chronic airflow obstruction and normal elastic recoil pressure (chronic bronchitis group: mean FEV1 57% predicted). Mucus clearan...

BACKGROUND Migration is an important virulence factor for intestinal bacteria. However, the role of bacterial mobility in the penetration of viscous mucus and their spatial organization within the colon is relatively unknown. METHODS Movements of fecal bacteria were assessed in gels of varying agarose concentrations and were compared with patterns of bacterial distribution observed in colons ...

Filtration mechanisms are known for only two species of suspension-feeding tilapia, each of which relies on a different method of particle retention. We used high-speed video endoscopy to assess whether a third species of tilapia, Oreochromis aureus, with gill rakers intact as well as surgically removed, uses mucus in the oropharyngeal cavity for hydrosol filtration or uses crossflow filtration...

In previous studies we have demonstrated a hydrogen ion concentration gradient across the mucus on rat and rabbit fundic mucosa, in vivo and in vitro respectively, observations which support the possibility of a 'mucus-bicarbonate' protective barrier. In the present studies we have demonstrated a similar gradient across the mucus on human gastric mucosa in vitro. The minimum mean hydrogen ion c...

The physiological changes of Vibrio anguillarum in response to growth in salmon intestinal mucus were investigated. Growth, survival, and changes in protein expression during growth in media supplemented with mucus were compared to growth and starvation in the identical media without mucus. V. anguillarum exhibited a rapid decline in CFU following growth in mucus as the sole carbon source. No s...

A vexing problem in cystic fibrosis (CF) pathogenesis has been to explain the high prevalence of Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms in CF airways. We speculated that airway surface liquid (ASL) hyperabsorption generates a concentrated airway mucus that interacts with P. aeruginosa to promote biofilms. To model CF vs. normal airway infections, normal (2.5% solids) and CF-like concentrated (8% solid...