Titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO NPs) are utilized with growing frequency for a wide variety of industrial applications. Recently， acute and chronic exposures to TiO NPs have been found to induce inflammatory response in the human respiratory tract. However， the effect and mechanism underlying the induction of major airway mucins by TiO NPs have not been elucidated. This study was conducted to characterize the effect of TiO NPs， and the mechanism involved， on the expressions of airway mucins in human airway epithelial cells.

MUC5B，mitogen-activated protein kinases，nanoparticles，respiratory epithelium，titanium dioxide，toll-like recept