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Abstract Smooth muscle constriction in asthma causes the airway to buckle into a rosette pattern, folding the epithelium into deep crevasses. The epithelial cells in these folds are pushed up against each other and thereby experience compressive stresses. To study the epithelial cell response to compressive stress, we subjected primary cultures of rat tracheal epithelial cells to constant elevated pressures on their apical surface (i.e., a transmembrane pressure) and examined changes in the expression of genes that are important for extracellular matrix production and maintenance of smooth muscle activation. Northern blot analysis of RNA extracted from cells subjected to transmembrane pressure showed induction of early growth response-1 (Egr-1), endothelin-1, and transforming growth factor-β1 in a pressure-dependent and time-dependent manner. Increases in Egr-1 protein were detected by immunohistochemistry. Our results demonstrate that airway epithelial cells respond rapidly to compressive stresses. Potential transduction mechanisms of transmembrane pressure were also investigated. asthma gene expression mechanical stress early growth response-1 endothelin-1 transforming growth factor-β1 Footnotes Address for reprint requests and other correspondence: R. D. Kamm, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Rm. 3-260, 77 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139 (E-mail: rdkamm@mit.edu ). This work was supported by the Whitaker Foundation; National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Grants HL-33009 and HL-54759; and the Freeman Foundation. The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. The article must therefore be hereby marked “ advertisement ” in accordance with 18 U.S.C. §1734 solely to indicate this fact. Copyright © 2000 the American Physiological Society
AJP - Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology – The American Physiological Society
Published: Jun 1, 2000
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