Effect of Alveolar Macrophage Motility and Chemotaxis on Clearance of Particles from Lung Surfaces: Progress Report, Year No. 1 (1987-1988)

摘要

In the distal airways, the alveolar macrophage plays a crucial role in defense of the lung against inhaled pathogens. These cells have been observed in vitro to move chemotactically in response to many types of attractants that may be present on the lung's surface during a bacterial or particulate challenge. This paper investigates the hypothesis that chemotactic ability is an important part of the defensive action of these cells as they ingest bacteria on the lung surface. We compare our mathematical model for lung clearance to previously published bacterial clearance data, and determine the amount of alveolar macrophage chemotactic ability required to account for observed clearance rates. The results show that while random motion is insufficient for clearance, only a moderate amount of chemotactic ability is actually necessary for our predicted clearance rates to agree with experimentally measured clearance rates.