NASAL EPITHELIAL-CELL CULTURE AS A TOOL IN EVALUATING CILIARY DYSFUNCTION

Cultures of respiratory epithelial cells were obtained from nasal poly ps collected in patients with and without primary ciliary defect. The ciliary beating frequency and the ciliary beating heterogeneity were d etermined on native and cultured tissues. We observed a significantly higher (p < 0.01) ciliary beating frequency of cultured ciliated cells , when compared with ciliated cells from the native tissue. The ciliar y beating frequency of the cultured ciliated cells from the patient wi th primary defect (7.9 +/- 2.1 Hz) was significantly lower when compar ed with the beating frequency of the ciliated cells from the control s ubject (12.4 +/- 2.0 Hz). In addition, the percentage of ciliated cell s characterized by a beating frequency lower than 8 Hz was 90.7% in th e native tissue and 47.5% in the cultured tissue from the patient with ciliary primary defect. In the patient without ciliary primary defect , 90% of the cultured ciliated cells had a homogeneous ciliary beating , whereas in the patient with primary ciliary defect, only 47% of the ciliated cells had a homogeneous ciliary beating. These results sugges t that the culture of respiratory cells associated with the functional activity measurement of the ciliated cells represent another way of p recisely determining the extent of the primary ciliary dyskinesia defe ct.