Does the disease state influence the responsiveness of human
airways studied in vitro?.
Armour, Carol L., Karen O. McKay, Peter R. A. Johnson, Alan R.
Glanville, and Judith L. Black.
Departments of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, University of Sydney,
NSW, 2006, The Cardiopulmonary Transplant Unit, St Vincents Hospital,
Darlinghurst, NSW, 2010, Australia
APStracts 3:0078A, 1996.
Human airway tissue has been used in vitro to study mechanisms of
airway disease. However, there has never been a comprehensive study
which has looked at the influence of disease on the subsequent in
vitro responsiveness of human airways. In this study, we obtained
airway tissue from patients who were undergoing resection of lung for
carcinoma. We then compared the airway responsiveness in these
tissues and that obtained in tissue from patients who had undergone
lung transplantation for a1antitrypsin deficiency, emphysema or
cystic fibrosis with responsiveness in tissues obtained from donor
lungs i.e. non-diseased. When the relationships between concentration
and response were compared, we found that for histamine, electrical
field stimulation, levcromakalim and isoproterenol, similar responses
could be expected in tissues obtained from all the sources studied.
This was not true for acetylcholine in that there were significantly
lower responses to that of the non-diseased group (n=6) in tissue
from patients with a1antitrypsin deficiency (p=0.02, n=9) or from
patients having lung resected for carcinoma (p=0.01, n=6). Similarly
for carbachol, responses were significantly lower than the non
-diseased group (n=9) for a1antitrypsin deficiency (p=0.001, n=10) and
in specimens resected for carcinoma (p=0.001, n=6). We would conclude
that apart from acetylcholine and carbachol, contractile and relaxant
agonists give similar responses when used in human airway tissues
from various sources. Our results highlight the importance of stating
the source of tissue when human airways are to be studied.
Received 8 May 1995; accepted in final form 10 January 1996.
APS Manuscript Number A489-5.
Article publication pending Journal of Applied Physiology.
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1996 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 8 February 96