Airway epithelial compression promotes airway smooth muscle proliferation and contraction

During acute bronchoconstriction, the airway epithelium becomes mechanically compressed, as airway smooth muscle contracts and the airway narrows. This mechanical compression activates airway epithelium to promote asthmatic airway remodeling. However, whether compressed airway epithelium can feed back on the cause of bronchoconstriction has remained an open question. Here we examine the potential for epithelial compression to augment proliferation and contraction of airway smooth muscle, and thus potentiate further bronchoconstriction and epithelial compression. Well-differentiated primary human bronchial epithelial (HBE) cells maintained in air-liquid interface culture were mechanically compressed to mimic the effect of bronchoconstriction. Primary human airway smooth muscle (HASM) cells were incubated with conditioned media collected from mechanically compressed HBE cells to examine the effect of epithelial-derived mediators on HASM-cell proliferation using an EdU assay and HASM-cell contraction using t...