Surfactant replacement therapy with bovine and porcine lung surfactant extracts, which contain only polar lipids and SP-B and SP-C, has revolutionized the clinical management of premature infants with respiratory distress syndrome.
Our data provide evidence that ABCA3 mutations are associated not only with a deficiency of ABCA3 but also with an abnormal processing and routing of SP-B and SP-C, leading to severe alterations of surfactant homeostasis and respiratory distress syndrome.
The BRICHOS domain was initially defined from sequence alignments of the Bri protein associated with familial dementia, chondromodulin associated with chondrosarcoma and surfactant protein C precursor (proSP-C) associated with respiratory distress syndrome and interstitial lung disease (ILD).