Research Suggests That Your Lungs Can Smell

Your lungs can smell. That's what new research suggests. But unlike the odor receptors in your nose, which send a message to the brain, the receptors in your lung cause the airways to constrict when a pungent or caustic odor such as cigarette smoke is sensed. The new class of cells called pulmonary neuroendocrine cells, or PNECs, were discovered by scientists at Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Iowa.

"Our body plan is a tube within a tube, so our lungs and our gut are open to the external environment," said Yehuda Ben-Shahar, an assistant professor of biology and of medicine at Washington University in St. Louis. "Although they're inside us, they're actually part of our external layer. So they constantly suffer environmental insults," he said, "and it makes sense that we evolved mechanisms to protect ourselves."

The researchers say the cells might be responsible for the chemical hypersensitivity that characterizes respiratory diseases, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma. Patients with these diseases are told to avoid traffic fumes, pungent odors, perfumes, and similar irritants, which can trigger airway constriction and breathing difficulties.

The odor receptors on the cells might be a therapeutic target, Ben-Shahar suggests. By blocking them, it might be possible to prevent some attacks, allowing people to cut down on the use of steroids or bronchodilators. When a mammal inhales, volatile chemicals flow over two patches of specialized tissue high up in the nasal passages. These patches are rich in nerve cells with specialized odorant-binding molecules embedded in their membranes.

If a chemical dock on one of these receptors, the neuron fires, sending impulses along the olfactory nerve to the olfactory bulb in the brain, where the signal is integrated with those from hundreds of other similar cells to conjure the scent of old leather or dried lavender. Aware that airway diseases are characterized by hypersensitivity to volatile stimuli, Ben-Shahar and his colleagues realized that the lungs, like the nose, must have some means of detecting inhaled chemicals.

In 2009, Ben-Shahar found that ciliated cells, cells with tiny hairlike protuberances that are responsible for moving things in the airway, responding to bitterness. But since people are sensitive to many inhaled substances, not just bitter ones, he wanted to revisit the issue. This time, he found that these tissues also express odor receptors, not on ciliated cells but instead on neuroendocrine cells, flask-shaped cells that dump serotonin and various neuropeptides when they are stimulated.

"When people with airway disease have pathological responses to odors, they're usually pretty fast and violent," said Ben-Shahar. "Patients suddenly shut down and can't breathe, and these cells may explain why," Ben-Shahar stresses the differences between chemosensation in the nose and in the lung. The cells in the nose are neurons, he points out, each with a narrowly tuned receptor, and their signals must be woven together in the brain to interpret our odor environment.

Cells in the airways are secretory, not neuronal, cells, and they may carry more than one receptor, so they are broadly tuned. Instead of sending nerve impulses to the brain, they flood local nerves and muscles with serotonin and neuropeptides. "They are possibly designed," he said, "to elicit a rapid, physiological response if you inhale something that is bad for you."

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The different mechanisms explain why cognition plays a much stronger role in taste and smell than in coughing in response to an irritant. It is possible, for example, to develop a taste for beer. But nobody learns not to cough; the response is rapid and largely automatic. Scientists suspect these pulmonary neurosecretory cells contribute to the hypersensitivity of patients with COPD to airborne irritants. COPD is a group of diseases, including emphysema, that is characterized by coughing, wheezing, shortness of breath, and chest tightness.

When the scientists looked at the airway tissues from patients with COPD, they discovered that they had more of these neurosecretory cells than airway tissues from healthy donors. Ben-Shahar is hopeful that the PNEC pathways will provide targets for drugs that would better control asthma, COPD, and other respiratory diseases. They would be welcome. There has been a steep rise in these diseases in the past few decades, treatment options have been limited, and there are no cures. (VOA/JC)

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