Cilia, tiny hair-like structures on the lung's lining, propel mucus up and out of the lung using a synchronised back-and-forth wave-like motion. Excess mucus is created when an irritant, like bacteria or dust, enters the lung.

It is vital to a person's health that the cilia effectively move the irritant-carrying mucus out of the lung. Interestingly, some irritants are known to make the cilia beat faster and some make the cilia beat more slowly.

Swine confinement workers suffer from many lung ailments. Based on what is known about other irritants, Todd A. Wyatt (University of Nebraska Medical Center, USA) and his colleagues hypothesised that dust from a swine confinement facility would affect the cilia and their ability to move mucus.

Using a cultured ciliated cell model, the authors of this study conclude that swine confinement facility dust does indeed affect cilia and its ability to clear mucus.

Exposing epithelial cells to swine confinement facility dust initially causes a slight increase in the speed at which the cilia beat. However, when a substance known to make the cilia beat faster under normal circumstances is added to dust-treated cells, the cilia do not beat faster.

Upon mechanistic inspection, the American team finds that both nitric oxide and interleukin-8 found in the dust regulated these cilia effects.

These studies may provide a basis for the chronic inhalation injuries observed in some agricultural workers exposed to organic dusts.

Title of original article-
Exposure to hog barn dust alters airway epithelial ciliary beating

The European Respiratory Journal is the peer-reviewed scientific publication of the European Respiratory Society (more than 8,000 specialists in lung diseases and respiratory medicine in Europe, the United States and Australia).

European Respiratory Journal