Journal
BIOLOGY OF THE CELL
Volume 103, Issue 4, Pages 159-169Publisher
PORTLAND PRESS LTD
DOI: 10.1042/BC20100120
Keywords
calcium; ciliary beat frequency (CBF); purinergic signalling; acetylcholine (ACh); pannexin; synchronization
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Funding
- National Institutes of Health
- FAMRI
- James and Esther King Florida Biomedical Research Program
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Motile cilia in the airway epithelium are the engine for mucociliary clearance, the mechanism responsible for cleaning the airways from inhaled particles. Human airway epithelial cilia appear to have a slow constitutive rate of beating, driven by inherent and spontaneous dynein ATPase activity. Additionally, cilia can increase their beating frequency by activation of several different control mechanisms. One of these controllers is calcium. Its intracellular concentration is regulated by purinergic and acetylcholine receptors. Besides the rate regulatory effect of calcium on ciliary beat, calcium is also involved in synchronizing the beat among cilia of one single cell as well as between cilia on different cells. This article gives an overview of the complex effects of calcium on the beating of motile cilia in the airways.
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