TY  - JOUR
TI  - Adhesive and Cohesive Peel Force Measurement of Human Airway Mucus
AU  - Goodell, Henry P.
AU  - Shenoy, Siddharth  K.
AU  - Shenkute, Nathan  T.
AU  - Lackey, Elijah 
AU  - Dennis, Robert  G.
AU  - Button, Brian 
VL  - 9
IS  - 13
PY  - 2019
DA  - 2019/07/05
SP  - e3287
C1  - Bio-protocol 2019;9:e3287
DO  - 10.21769/BioProtoc.3287
UR  - https://doi.org/10.21769/BioProtoc.3287
AB  - In health, the high-speed airflow associated with cough represents a vital backup mechanism for clearing accumulated mucus from our airways. However, alterations in the mucus layer in cystic fibrosis (CF) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) leads to the mucus layer adhered to the airway surfaces, representing the nidus of chronic lung infection. To understand what is different about diseased mucus and why cough clearance is defective, there is a need for techniques to quantify the strength of the interactions limiting the ability of airflow to strip mucus from the airway surface (i.e., adhesive strength) or tear mucus apart (i.e., cohesive strength). To overcome the issues with measuring these properties in a soft (i.e., low elastic modulus) mucus layer, we present here novel peel-testing technologies capable of quantifying the mucus adhesive strength on cultured airway cells and cohesive strength of excised mucus samples. While this protocol focuses on measurements of airway mucus, this approach can easily be adapted to measuring adhesive/cohesive properties of other soft biological materials.
KW  - Lung disease
KW  - Mucus
KW  - Adhesion
KW  - Cohesion
KW  - Biopolymers
KW  - Peel force
JF  - Bio-protocol
SN  - 2331-8325
PB  - Bio-protocol LLC.
BIO101  - False