Surface property changes from interactions of albumin with natural lung surfactant and extracted lung lipids.

These experiments characterize the effects of albumin on the dynamic surface activity of natural lung surfactant (LS), and an extracted mixed lipid fraction (CLL), at physiologic temperature, humidity, and film cycling rate on an oscillating bubble apparatus. Measurements of albumin effects on the surface pressure-time (pi-t) adsorption isotherms of CLL and LS are also reported. Results show that albumin in concentrations greater than or equal to 20 mg/ml increased the minimum dynamic surface tension of LS suspensions (0.4 mg phospholipid/ml) from less than 1 dyne/cm to 21 dynes/cm at 37 degrees C. Albumin in low concentrations (2 mg/ml) had a similar detrimental effect on the dynamic surface activity of extracted surfactant lipids, CLL. In addition, albumin also inhibited the isolated adsorption facility of LS and CLL; instead of adsorbing rapidly to their maximum spreading pressures of 45 dynes/cm, both surfactant mixtures (at 0.063 and 0.125 mg phospholipid/ml) adsorbed more slowly or reached lower final surface pressures in the presence of plasma protein. A striking finding was that albumin inhibition of surface activity was moderated or abolished at high lipid concentrations. For example, minimum dynamic surface tensions less than 1 dyne/cm were reached on the oscillating bubble for natural LS at concentrations greater than 0.75 mg/ml and CLL at concentrations greater than 1.5 mg/ml, even in the presence of very large amounts of albumin (100 mg/ml). Similarly, LS and CLL adsorption facility was protected from albumin inhibition at sufficiently high phospholipid concentrations. Albumin inhibition of natural LS adsorption was also moderated by the presence of 1.4 mM Ca2+ ions. These results show that albumin in plasma transudates has the potential to seriously impair alveolar surfactant activity in vivo. However, the detrimental effect will be mitigated if a critical threshold of phospholipid is present.