amiloride-sensitive sodium channels and pulmonary edemaamiloride-sensitive钠离子通道和肺水肿.pdfVIP

Hindawi Publishing Corporation Pulmonary Medicine Volume 2011, Article ID 830320, 8 pages doi:10.1155/2011/830320 Review Article Amiloride-Sensitive Sodium Channels and Pulmonary Edema Mike Althaus, Wolfgang G. Clauss, and Martin Fronius Institute of Animal Physiology, Justus-Liebig University of Giessen, Wartweg 95, 35392 Giessen, Germany Correspondence should be addressed to Mike Althaus, mike.althaus@bio.uni-giessen.de Received 10 September 2010; Accepted 1 December 2010 Academic Editor: Andrew Sandford Copyright © 2011 Mike Althaus et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The development of pulmonary edema can be considered as a combination of alveolar flooding via increased fluid filtration, impaired alveolar-capillary barrier integrity, and disturbed resolution due to decreased alveolar fluid clearance. An important mechanism regulating alveolar fluid clearance is sodium transport across the alveolar epithelium. Transepithelial sodium transport is largely dependent on the activity of sodium channels in alveolar epithelial cells. This paper describes how sodium channels contribute to alveolar fluid clearance under physiological conditions and how deregulation of sodium channel activity might contribute to the pathogenesis of lung diseases associated with pulmonary edema. Furthermore, sodium channels as putative molecular targets for the treatment of pulmonary edema are discussed. 1. Introduction The consequence of the proximity of the capillaries to the