Introduction A critical modulator of gastrointestinal (GI) motility and secretion is the enteric nervous system (ENS). The ENS is a highly unique integrated neuronal circuitry, which, in contrast to other components of the peripheral nervous system, can and often does…
Introduction The stomach plays a number of roles in the digestive process and in host defense. Not only does the stomach serve as a reservoir for ingested foods and an important site of digestion; it is also exposed to a…
Introduction Development of the gastrointestinal tract involves crucial processes, including endoderm formation and patterning along the anterior-to-posterior, dorsoventral, and left-right axis; gut tube morphogenesis into the foregut, midgut, and hindgut domains; assembly of mesenchyme, epithelial morphogenesis, and cytodifferentiation. The organogenesis…
Acknowledgments This work is a publication of the U.S. Department of Agriculture/Agricultural Research Service, Children’s Nutrition Research Center, Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital, Houston, Texas. The work was supported in part by federal funds…
Acknowledgments The authors thank Jeffrey A. Whitsett, MD, Darrell Kotton, MD, Timothy Weaver, PhD, Aaron Hamvas, MD, F. Sessions Cole, MD, Frances V. White, MD, Lisa Young, MD, Robin Deterding, MD, Alicia Casey, MD, Martha Fishman, MD, Susan Guttentag, MD,…
Historical Background A brief history of surfactant for the treatment of respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) provides perspective on this major therapeutic advance. In 1959, not long after surfactant had been identified as critical to maintaining lung inflation at low transpulmonary…
Introduction The use of antenatal hormone therapy to accelerate fetal maturation and decrease the incidence of respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) and other neonatal problems has been one of the great success stories of perinatal medicine. Here we describe the actions…
Introductory Remarks on Mammalian Surfactant Phospholipid Analysis and Functions Application of the Young-Laplace Equation (1805) by van Neergard in 1929 substantially promoted the understanding of lung physiology, showing that pulmonary retraction is primarily based on surface tension. It took three…
Introduction The ultimate temporal and morphologic stage of lung development is the formation of millions of gas exchange units, the alveoli. Life is possible without the alveolus; there are few in very premature infants. However, without expansion and maturation of…
Introduction In vertebrates, adaptation to a nonaqueous respiratory environment was achieved by the development of lungs, which provide an extensive surface area for gas exchange. The unique physicochemical boundary between respiratory gases and the alveolar epithelium creates a region of…