Serum Proteins Agglutinate Cilia and Modify Ciliary Coordination

Abstract

Summary: A quantifiable assay is described in which the lateral cilia of the sea mussel Mytilus edulis are used to examine the effects of serum on ciliary function.

Human sera and sera from a variety of animals have been found to induce a change in ciliary metachrony. This alteration in activity appears to be brought about by the agglutination of adjacent cilia into blocks, with the effect of increasing the wavelength; the beat frequency remains steady. Parallel studies with the rabbit cilia assay have shown the agglutination of tracheal cilia into clumps by adult bovine serum. The dilution of adult bovine serum lengthens the time before dyskinesia is first observed in both the Mytilus and rabbit assays. Fetal bovine or human cord sera do not cause ciliary dyskinesia or ciliary agglutination.

The evidence presented shows that the observed ciliary dyskinesia can be induced by sera from a variety of animals and is not specific to cystic fibrosis; it also suggests that the serum immunoglobulin fraction is responsible for these effects—initial studies implicate IgM.

Speculation: The discrimination between whole sera from normal and cystic fibrosis subjects by some other workers using ciliary assays may depend upon differences in the quantity of ciliary-specific serum immunoglobulins, presumably IgM, between the normal and cystic fibrosis serum samples. The effect of any small molecular weight factor found after fractionation in the other studies must be completely overshadowed in whole sera by the effect of IgM.

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