Nasal drug administration is a promising alternative to oral and parenteral administration for both local and systemic delivery of drugs. The benefits include its noninvasive nature, rapid absorption, and circumvention of first pass metabolism. Hence, the use of an in vitro model using human primary nasal epithelial cells could be key to understanding important functions and parameters of the respiratory epithelium. This model will enable investigators to address important and original research questions using a biologically relevant in vitro platform that mimics the in vivo nasal epithelial physiology. The purpose of this study was to establish, systematically characterize, and validate the use of a primary human nasal epithelium model cultured at the air-liquid interface for the study of inflammatory responses and drug transport and to simultaneously quantify drug effects on ciliary activity.
Keywords: ciliary function; epithelial cells; nasal drug delivery; tobramycin; transport.