PSEUDOMONAS-AERUGINOSA-II LECTIN STOPS HUMAN CILIARY BEATING - THERAPEUTIC IMPLICATIONS OF FUCOSE

Respiratory tract infection by Pseudomomas aeruginosa may be life-thre atening for intensive care patients and patients with cystic fibrosis (CF). The colonization of airways can be facilitated by bacterial lect ins (carbohydrate-binding proteins) that attach bacteria to the glycoc onjugates of the mucosa. We show in this paper that the fucose-specifi c lectin P. aeruginosa agglutinin II (PAII) produced by these bacteria can, in addition to facilitating bacterial adhesion, arrest ciliary b eating in human airways in vitro. This inhibitory effect of the lectin can be abolished by preincubating PAII with its specific sugar, fucos e. Furthermore, ciliary beating is completely restored by addition of fucose 2 h after administration of PAII to cell cultures. Therefore, a dding a simple monosaccharide to nebulizers may improve the management of P. aeruginosa infection by abrogating the effect of PAII on ciliar y beating, thus restoring part of the nonspecific pulmonary defense me chanisms of the airways.