Differences in mucus-stimulating serum fractions of cystic fibrosis patients and controls

In nature, the urn cell complexes which swim in the coelomic fluid of the marine invertebrate, Sipunculus nudus, produce "tails" of mucus in response to bacterial pathogens. Since they produce measurable tails of mucus in vitro, suspensions of urn cell complexes provide a bioassay for mucus-stimulating substances (MSS) in biological fluids, including several human body fluids. Heat-activated seawater dilutions of human serum contain MSS. Serum from 87 cystic fibrosis (CF) homozygotes, 60 obligate heterozygotes, and 45 controls were fractionated on a Sephadex G-200 gel filtration column. After subsequent heating for 4 min at 85 degrees C, the fractions of all normal sera showed two characteristic peaks of MSS activity. The pattern differed in heated serum fractions of CF patients, in that the second peak was lacking in 59% of individual tests. The pattern was intermediate in heterozygote sera. Of the 36 CF serum fractions which did have two peaks of activity, 89% had the predominant activity in peak 1. The frequency of single peaks of activity increased with patient age, from 33% in those under 10 years to 75% in those over 16. The molecular weight of peak 1 is about 75,000 daltons, of peak 2 about 30,000. One may speculate that the frequent lack of peak 2 serum components may be associated with the inability of most CF patients to produce normal mucus following respiratory infection.