Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a progressive lung disease, which is mainly caused by the inhalation of noxious particles, the major one being cigarette smoke. Enhanced chronic airway inflammation leads to restricted airflow to the lungs, causing shortness of breath, sputum production and chronic cough. The condition usually develops during mid-life, with the symptoms slowly progressing over the years. The World Health Organisation predicts that COPD will become the third leading cause of death worldwide by 2030.

COPD management normally requires both lifestyle changes as well as pharmacological treatment. Prevention of exposure to cigarette smoke and other noxious particles is crucial, while various prescription medicines are available for incorporation into a management plan.

Roflumilast is a recent medicine which is used for the management of patients with severe COPD. It is the first of a new class of medicines for this condition. Roflumilast works by increasing the concentration of a chemical called cAMP in cells, and this leads to a widening of the airways together with a reduction in inflammation, thus contributing to a decrease in the symptoms of the disease. The effects of this drug alone and in combination with other COPD drugs, were studied in detail at the Department of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, University of Malta, as part of a Master of Science degree project.

We cultured lung airway cells in our laboratories, and used a special technique called magnetofection to introduce special biosensors which are responsive to inflammation. These biosensors consist of specially engineered DNA which causes the cells to produce a particular chemical (luciferase), if specific inflammatory mechanisms inside the cells are active. The amount of luciferase produced can then be measured in our laboratories using specialised equipment.

We used this system to study how roflumilast acts on lung airway cells to reduce inflammation. In order to do this, we created a simulated COPD environment within our cell cultures by adding special chemicals that are found in the airways of COPD patients. Since COPD is often managed using different medicines together, besides studying the anti-inflammatory effects of roflumilast alone, we also studied its effects in the presence of other drugs.

From our experiments, we identified specific anti-inflammatory mechanisms which roflumilast activates. However, when we studied the effects of roflumilast combined with other drugs, we noticed that these mechanisms were altered. This suggests that there may be other, as yet unknown, mechanisms which roflumilast uses in order to cause a reduction in inflammation. We intend to study this further. These results may eventually lead to a better understanding and better use of the drug in patients.

The results of this project will be presented at the prestigious annual conference of the British Pharmacological Society to be held in London between December 18 and 20.

Francesca Camilleri recently graduated with a Master of Science in Molecular Pharmacology and is biomedical scientist at the Biochemistry Laboratory, Mater Dei Hospital. The research work described in this publication is funded by the Endeavour Scholarship Scheme (Malta). The scholarship is part-financed by the European Union – European Social Fund (ESF) under Operational Programme II – Cohesion Policy 2014-2020, ‘Investing in human capital to create more opportunities and promote the well-being of society’.

Did you know?

• By using echolocation, bats can see everything but colour and detect obstacles as fine as a human hair.  Whoever came up with the phrase ‘blind as a bat’?

• 75 per cent of the world’s food is generated from only 12 plants and five animal species.

• Unlike Malta, Finland has 10 trees for every person in the world.

• There are some people who cannot visualise things in their minds, so when asked to imagine something, they only see the blackness of their eyelids. These people, sufferers of aphantasia, cannot believe and/or understand the majority of us can, in fact, picture things vividly with our mind’s eye.

• Erik The Red who discovered Greenland, called it Greenland in spite of its ice cover, because people would be attracted to go there if it had a favourable name, and used it as a trick to lure settlers to Greenland.

• Not a science one… In English, a ‘French Exit’ is to sneak out of a party without telling anyone. In French, it’s known as partir à l’anglaise – to leave the English way. Brexit, anyone?

For more trivia see: www.um.edu.mt/think

Sound bites

• The more sensitive people are to the bitter taste of caffeine, the more coffee they drink, reports a new study. The sensitivity is based on genetics. Bitterness is a natural warning system to protect us from harmful substances, so we really should not like coffee. Scientists say people with heightened ability to detect coffee’s bitterness learn to associate good things with it.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181115104603.htm

• We often think of sleep at night as a restorative function: a vital quiet time that recharges and mends our bodies. And it is, but perhaps not quite the way we imagine. In fact, recent research shows that when it comes to wound healing, our bodies actually heal significantly faster if the injury is sustained during the day rather than at night, because of the way circadian rhythms control how cells function.

https://www.sciencealert.com/the-weird-reason-you-heal-faster-during-the-day-than-at-night-time

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