{"doi":"10.17615/r02t-5h69","title":"Mucus clearance as a primary innate defense mechanism for mammalian airways","abstract":"The conducting airways branch 20–25 times between the trachea and the alveoli as inhaled air passes from the relatively constricted nasal/tracheal passages to the large surface area of alveoli (70 m2), where gas exchange occurs. This branching anatomy leads to a surface area that expands greatly from proximal airways (e.g., third generation; ∼50 cm2) to distal airways (20th to 25th generation; ∼2 m2). The regional differences in airway surface area (or airway perimeters; ref. 1), which is often depicted by showing the airways as an inverted funnel (Figure ​(Figure1),1), pose interesting challenges for lung defense. Because many of the particles that settle on airway surfaces are infectious, airways have evolved innate defense mechanisms that constantly protect airways against bacterial and other types of infection.","journal":"UNC Libraries","year":2020,"id":143372,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9543,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":105530,"name":"Richard C. Boucher","orcid":"0000-0002-5745-3989","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":302583,"name":"Michael R. Knowles","orcid":"0000-0002-4672-5969","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:17:38.432803Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}