Mouse alveolar surfactant: characterization of subtypes prepared by differential centrifugation

To characterize the properties of alveolar surfactant subfractions obtained from mouse lung by differential centrifugation, lavage fluid, following a preliminary centrifugation at 140 x g for 5 min to yield a cellular pellet (Pc), was sequentially centrifuged at 10,000 x g for 30 min, 60,000 x g for 60 min and 100,000 x g for 15 h; and the resultant pellets, respectively referred to as P10, P60 and P100, were harvested for electron microscopy, phospholipid analysis and surface tension measurements. Ultrastructural differences were observed, in that P10 contained large multilamellated structures which were typical of newly secreted surfactant, P100 contained small unilamellar vesicular structures, typical of catabolic end products of alveolar surfactant and P60 appeared to contain a mixture of structures present in P10 and P100 in addition to numerous, large unilamellar vesicles which were not present in either P10 or P100. Slight but significant differences were found in the phospholipid compositions of the three subfractions but not in the fatty acid composition of their phosphatidylcholine (PC) component. There were no significant differences in their disaturated PC/total PC ratios, but significant differences in their phospholipid/protein ratios. P60 had the highest proportion of phospholipid to protein. P10 and P60 demonstrated surface activity but P100 did not. Total alveolar surfactant phospholipid was evenly distributed among the three fractions. This pattern of distribution was significantly different from that observed in rabbit subfractions prepared by the same procedure. These data indicate that mouse alveolar surfactant consists of three distinct subfractions or subtypes which can be separately and quantitatively isolated by differential centrifugation.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)