Airway Smooth Muscle in Health and Disease

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvi

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2. Structure of Airway Smooth Muscle and Its Innervation

   • Giorgio Gabella

   Pages 1-16

3. Integration of Neural Inputs in Peripheral Airway Ganglia

   • Ronald F. Coburn

   Pages 17-34

4. Nervous Receptors in the Tracheobronchial Tree

   • John G. Widdicombe

   Pages 35-53

5. Polypeptide-Containing Neurons and Their Function in Airway Smooth Muscle

   • Sami I. Said

   Pages 55-76

6. Cell-Surface Receptors in Airway Smooth Muscle

   • Peter J. Barnes

   Pages 77-97

7. Cellular Control Mechanisms in Airway Smooth Muscle

   • Primal de Lanerolle

   Pages 99-125

8. Transduction and Signaling in Airway Smooth Muscle

   • Carl B. Baron

   Pages 127-149

9. Electrical Properties of Airway Smooth Muscle

   • Tadao Tomita

   Pages 151-167

10. Ion Channels in Airway Smooth Muscle

    • Michael I. Kotlikoff

    Pages 169-182

11. Coupling Mechanisms in Airway Smooth Muscle

    • Ronald F. Coburn, Kenji Baba

    Pages 183-197

12. Postulated Mechanisms Underlying Airway Hyperreactivity

    • Douglas W. P. Hay

    Pages 199-235

13. Airway Epithelial Metabolism and Airway Smooth Muscle Hyperresponsiveness

    • David B. Jacoby, Jay A. Nadel

    Pages 237-266

14. Airway Hyperreactivity

    • James C. Hogg

    Pages 267-276

15. Current Concepts of the Pathophysiology of Allergic Asthma

    • Ruth Jacobs, Michael Kaliner

    Pages 277-299

16. Exercise-Induced Bronchoconstriction

    • Joseph F. Souhrada

    Pages 301-313

17. Back Matter

    Pages 315-318

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I organized this book because there is a need to put together in book form recent advances in our knowledge of how airway smooth muscle:works in health and in disease. After a period when it seemed that progress was very slow, there has been in the past few years an incredibly rapid gathering of knowledge in this area. In particular, our understanding has improved regarding the cascades of events that follow the initial binding of agonist to plasma membrane receptors and that lead to the cross-bridge movements that determine contraction. This advance in our knowledge was stimulated by use of single-and whole-cell channel recordings of plasma membrane currents and by description of the l3-receptor-GTP-binding protein-adenylate cyclase-cAMP coupling system, which serves as a model for other coupling mechanisms. The discovery of the receptor-activated inositol phospholipid transduction system has greatly stimulated research and led to advances in our understanding of mechanisms involved in smooth muscle con­ traction. Major advances were also triggered by the development of indicators for measuring free cytosolic calcium concentration and starting the unraveling of 2 the events involved in Ca + -dependent activation of contractile proteins. Al­ though most of the studies that led to our current understanding of these areas were performed on nonairway smooth muscle, these studies usually add to our understanding of airway smooth muscle, and there is an enlarging body of data that have been obtained on airway smooth muscle.

• ATP
• Asthma
• Calcium
• Nucleotide
• Peptide
• biochemistry
• metabolism
• pathophysiology
• physiology
• smooth muscle

• Department of Physiology, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, USA

  Ronald F. Coburn

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