Introduction

Section II (Airway/Alveolar Surface) focuses on the events that NPs encounter on the lung surface. We start by giving the readers a broad picture on this topic (Chapter 3), followed by details. In Chapter 4, we discuss how NPs are coated by proteins (“protein corona”) in the alveoli, a topic extensively studied currently. As surfactant proteins are the rst proteins NPs encounter after deposition on the alveolar surface, a large portion of Chapter 4 is devoted to this topic. In Chapter 5, we discuss the interactions of NPs with the hypophase (i.e., alveolar lining uid), with emphasis on carbon nanobers. The section ends with a discussion of lung defense mechanisms (Chapter 6); these are essential for the host because the lungs are exposed to an astronomically large number of particles constantly.