Travis explained how the findings could lead to potential therapies.
"Lowering the salt concentration in the cystic fibrosis airway might allow the antimicrobial factors to kill bacteria," she said. "Second, treatment using antimocribal factors that can function well in high-salt liquid could be beneficial."
"This work helps lay the foundation on which new treatments can be built for cystic fibrosis," said co-investigator Michael J. Welsh, M.D., UI professor of internal medicine, and physiology and biophysics.
Welsh, who is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, led a previous study that suggests that the absence or malfunction of a specialized chloride channel in the cystic fibrosis airway causes the increased saltiness and that treatment could be based on correcting this salt imbalance.
In addition to Travis and Welsh, the other UI investigators for the antimicrobial study included Barbara-Ann D. Conway, Ph.D., postdoctoral associate in microbiology; Joseph Zabner, M.D., assistant professor of internal medicine; Jeffrey J. Smith, M.D., associate professor (clinical) of pediatrics; Norma N. Anderson, researcher in internal medicine; Pradeep K. Singh, M.D., fellow in internal medicine, and E. Peter Greenberg, Ph.D., professor of microbiology.
The study was funded in part by a grant from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. The findings were published in the May issue of the American Journal of Respiratory, Cell and Molecular Biology. The May issue also included a perspective on the study by Charles L. Bevins, M.D., Ph.D., of the Lerner Research Institute at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation.
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Contact: Becky Soglin
becky-soglin@uiowa.edu
319-335-6660
University of Iowa
8-Sep-1999