Researchers from The University of Osaka found that PM_2.5 air pollutants negatively affect mucociliary clearance, a protective mechanism of the respiratory tract. Air pollution led to the formation of lipid peroxide-derived aldehydes, known to damage protective cells in the airway and increase the risk of infections. ALDH1A1 was found to play an important role in protection against aldehydes, making it a potential therapeutic target to diminish the negative effects of air pollution.

Extremely preterm newborns who weigh less than 3.3 pounds have immature lungs that often require high levels of ventilation oxygen in the hospital. This contributes to the chronic lung disease bronchopulmonary dysplasia, or BPD, the most common cause of death for these tiny infants. BPD exacts a devastating toll on the immature lung. In one of the most extensive studies of the microorganisms in the intestines of very preterm infants, University of Alabama at Birmingham and University of Tennessee Health Science Center researchers show that the gut composition of fungi in the second week of life predicts the later development of BPD, weeks to months before diagnosis of that disease. They analyzed gut fungi in the first true non-meconium stool produced before two weeks of life and found that the fungal intestinal microbiome — known as the mycobiome — of infants who later developed BPD differed in community diversity, composition and interconnectivity from the infants who never got BPD, as measured by the most up-to-date bioinformatic techniques.