Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med., Vol 155, No. 6, Jun 1997, 2102-2104.
Pseudomonas aeruginosa II lectin stops human ciliary beating: therapeutic implications of fucose
EC Adam, BS Mitchell, DU Schumacher, G Grant and U Schumacher
Department of Human Morphology, University of Southampton, United Kingdom.
Respiratory tract infection by Pseudomomas aeruginosa may be life-
threatening for intensive care patients and patients with cystic fibrosis
(CF). The colonization of airways can be facilitated by bacterial lectins
(carbohydrate-binding proteins) that attach bacteria to the glycoconjugates
of the mucosa. We show in this paper that the fucose-specific lectin P.
aeruginosa agglutinin II (PAII) produced by these bacteria can, in addition
to facilitating bacterial adhesion, arrest ciliary beating in human airways
in vitro. This inhibitory effect of the lectin can be abolished by
preincubating PAII with its specific sugar, fucose. Furthermore, ciliary
beating is completely restored by addition of fucose 2 h after
administration of PAII to cell cultures. Therefore, adding a simple
monosaccharide to nebulizers may improve the management of P. aeruginosa
infection by abrogating the effect of PAII on ciliary beating, thus
restoring part of the nonspecific pulmonary defense mechanisms of the
airways.
