The high molecular fractions, i.e., greater than 100,000 dalton, are found to be most responsible for the H+ ion absorption capacity of the mucus in the respiratory tract. This function serves as a protection against the penetration of the H+ ion to the surrounding tissue. Acidifying mucus with a high concentration of protein, mainly glycoproteins, results in increased viscosity, which affects ...

Mucus colonization is an essential early step toward establishing successful infection and disease by mucosal pathogens. There is an emerging literature implicating specific mucin sub-types and mucin modifications in protecting the host from Campylobacter jejuni infection. However, mucosal pathogens have evolved sophisticated mechanisms to breach the mucus layer and C. jejuni in particular appe...

-l, A lectin fraction has been isolated from mucus produced by the snail Helix aspersa by affinity chromatography of mucus protein on Sephadex G-100. The lectin is eluted with D-glucose. It agglutinates rabbit red blood cells but not human type A and is inhibited by o-GalNAc and to a lesser extent o-GlcNAc and D-Gal. 2. The anti-A agglutinin of the Helix albumin gland was isolated by the same m...

The mucociliary transport system plays an important role in the clearance of excessive mucus and inhaled foreign materials from the respiratory tract. Airway epithelium’s ciliary structure is a part of the natural defense system that protects the respiratory system by propelling debris laden mucus. The mucus flow is generated by the vigorous asymmetric beating of the cilia, which can be named a...

Mucus in the gastrointestinal tract remains a tenacious barrier that restricts the passage of many orally administered compounds into the GIT's epithelial layer and consequently into the systemic circulation. This results in significant decreases in the oral bioavailability of many therapeutic molecules. Nanoparticles offer an avenue to surpass this mucus barrier. They can be used as drug carri...

One thousand one hundred and thirty sera from hospital patients under investigation for autoimmune disease were tested for colon mucus antibody and tissue antibodies. The sera with a positive mucus antibody were retested against a panel of test colons of known blood group using IgG, IgA, and IgM antihuman globulin fluorescein isothiocyanate conjugate. It was found that there was a variation bet...

The hydrophilicity of pedal mucus trails deposited by marine snails influences the settlement of other organisms and can potentially influence the trailing and homing mechanisms of terrestrial snails. The composition of pedal mucus deposited as a trail on a solid substrate by the giant African land snail (Achatina marginata) has been probed non-invasively using infrared ellipsometry. The primar...

Nanoparticles that readily penetrate mucosal layers are desirable for a variety of biomedical applications. Nevertheless, most nanoparticles tend to be immobilized in mucus via steric and/or adhesive interactions. Contrary to the established opinion that poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) is mucoadhesive, we discovered that coating otherwise mucoadhesive nanoparticles with certain partially hydrolyzed P...

We designed a simple coarse-grained model of the glycocalyx layer, or adhesive mucus layer (AML), covered by mucus gel (luminal mucus layer) using a polymer lattice model and stochastic sampling (replica exchange Monte Carlo) for canonical ensemble simulations. We assumed that mucin MUC16 is responsible for the structural properties of the AML. Other mucins that are much smaller in size and les...