Effect of Hypersensitivity on Protein Uptake Across the Air-Blood Barrier of Isolated Rabbit Lungs

In previous studies with isolated perfused rabbit lungs, we observed that human serum albumin (HSA) and ovalbumin, introduced into the isolated lungs as an aerosol, entered the pulmonary circulation antigenically intact. The “inhaled” proteins were also broken down in the lung. When lungs from animals immunized with one protein inhaled the two proteins simultaneously, absorption of intact antigen was specifically reduced, and there was a nonspecific increase in the appearance of metabolites of both proteins in the blood.

In the present study, we investigated the antigen-specific and nonspecific effects of two types of hypersensitivity responses on protein absorption across the air-blood barrier of isolated rabbit lungs. In one group of lungs, an acute hypersensitivity response was induced by introducing HSA into the blood perfusing lungs from HSA-immunized rabbits. In another, the rabbits had been previously exposed to chronic HSA aerosol until their lungs exhibited a chronic immunologic inflammatory response. Lungs from both groups were insufflated simultaneously with HSA, and a nonspecific protein, ovalbumin. Lungs in which the acute anaphylactic response was induced showed no alteration in the absorption of either intact protein compared with HSA-immunized controls, but absorbed a somewhat larger quantity of breakdown products of the specific antigen. Lungs undergoing the chronic alveolar inflammation were more permeable to nonspecific protein than were noninflamed lungs. Despite the increased permeability to nonspecific protein, the absorption of antigen was blocked as effectively as in immune but noninflamed controls. In these chronically inflamed lungs, the absorption of antigen breakdown products was enhanced. The results indicate that both immunologic and inflammatory mechanisms may control the amounts of inhaled soluble proteins that reach the blood via the alveolocapillary barrier. Alterations in the absorption of inhaled proteins and their metabolites across the air-blood barrier during certain types of hypersensitivity responses may be of immunologic and pathologic significance.

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