Liquid movement across the surface epithelium of large airways

The cystic fibrosis conductance regulator CFTR gene is found on chromosome 7 (Kerem et al., 1989; Riordan et al., 1989) and encodes for a 1,480 amino acid protein which is present in the plasma membrane of epithelial cells (Anderson et al., 1992). This protein appears to have many functions, but a unifying theme is that it acts as a protein kinase C- and cyclic AMP-regulated Cl- channel (Winpenny et al., 1995; Jia et al., 1997). In the superficial epithelium of the conducting airways, CFTR is involved in Cl- secretion (Boucher, 2003) and also acts as a regulator of the epithelial Na+ channel (ENaC) and hence Na+ absorption (Boucher et al., 1986; Stutts et al., 1995). In this chapter, we will discuss the regulation of these two ion channels, and how they can influence liquid movement across the superficial airway epithelium