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Breathing Deeper
28 March 2017

Breathing Deeper

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a group of diseases including chronic bronchitis and emphysema. Patients with COPD are usually older smokers, who experience persistent coughing and breathlessness. It‘s thought that smoking contributes to COPD by obstructing the self-healing process that normally occurs in lung tissue by interrupting a protein called Frizzled 4 (which works to repair damaged lung cells). Researchers noticed that less Frizzled 4 is present in patients with COPD than healthy patients, and so they investigated further in the lab. They found that when lung cells are exposed to cigarette smoke, Frizzled 4 vanishes from the cell surface, halting cell growth and leading to deteriorated tissue (pictured on the right, with healthy lung tissue on the left). When levels of Frizzled 4 were increased, the cell repair process was restored and the cells were able to self-heal.

Written by Katie Panteli

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BPoD stands for Biomedical Picture of the Day. Managed by the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences until Jul 2023, it is now run independently by a dedicated team of scientists and writers. The website aims to engage everyone, young and old, in the wonders of biology, and its influence on medicine. The ever-growing archive of more than 4000 research images documents over a decade of progress. Explore the collection and see what you discover. Images are kindly provided for inclusion on this website through the generosity of scientists across the globe.

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