Study on glycocluster prophylaxis by using a bacterium adherence model

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is an autosomal recessive disease caused by the mutations of the CFTR gene encoding CFTR protein which serves like a field ion channel in the body. For the patients suffering from CF is a typical increased adherence of bacteria to lung epithelium caused by the accumulation of thickened mucus on the surface of air passages and varied glycosylation in lungs. These conditions increase sensitivity of patients who suffer from CF to bacterial infections of lungs caused by Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA). A considerable role in the pathogenicity of PA plays its virulent factors such as for example PA-IL and PA-IIL lectins, which enable an adherence of PA on the host cells joining on its surface receptors containing D-galactose (PA-IL) or L-fucose (PA-IIL). In this thesis the main aim was to verify an ability of given anti-PA-IIL chicken antibodies and multivalent PA-IIL inhibitors (specifically of the so-called fucose-based glycoclaters) to prevent PA adherence on lung epithelial cells and to stop from a formation of the PA infections at the patients. A prophylactic impact both antiadhesive agens (anti-PA-IIL antibodies, fucose-based glycoclasters) was studied ex vivo on the model system of immortalized lung epithelial cell lines CuFi-1 isolated from the ill patients with CF and NuLi-1..