Break
AIChE Annual Meeting
2023
2023 AIChE Annual Meeting
Catalysis and Reaction Engineering Division
Catalyst Design, Synthesis, and Characterization VI: Catalyst Synthesis and Preparation
Thursday, November 9, 2023 - 4:24pm to 4:42pm
In this work, I seek to develop a fuller understanding of the roles of native mucus in the context of mucociliary clearance. I focus on two aspects: (1) mucus-bacteria interactions and (2) mucus properties essential to efficient mucus clearance. I develop a method for harvesting native mucus with concentrations matching healthy and diseased airway mucus using well-differentiated human bronchia epithelial cell cultures. I quantify the transport of opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain PA14, a human clinical isolate responsible for chronic lung infections, in this native mucus to elucidate the effects of mucus-bacteria interactions on bacteria motility. I find that PA exhibits a bimodal motility; in healthy mucus, motion is primarily linear, with a small proportion adopting a confined motion. As mucus concentration increases, PA14 exhibit an increasing propensity for confinement. With this work, I seek to unravel long-standing questions of human lung defense by understanding the mechanisms of bacterial transport through native mucus.