THERAPEUTIC PROPERTIES OF SALT MINES FROM ROMANIA Constantin Munteanu 1 , Diana Munteanu 2 , Mihai Hoteteu 1 1 Romanian Association of Balneology, Bucharest, Romania, www.bioclima.ro, office@bioclima.ro 2 National Institute of Rehabilitation, Physical Medicine and Balneoclimatology, Bucharest, Romania; Abstract: Main therapeutic indications of salt mines and caves are represented by respiratory diseases, especially asthma. Asthma is a disease characterized by chronic inflammation of the airways which make them hyperresponsive and change in their architecture, a process called remodeling. To solve the existing problems in allergy, pulmonology and medical recovery field and for use of natural therapeutic factors in patient treatement with different pathologies, international scientific community reviewed the therapeutic properties of caves and salt mines. Our objective was to explore the effects of speleotherapy on cellular morphology and physiology of pulmonary and dermal fibroblasts obtained from tissues of Wistar rats, in normal and Ovalbumin challenged, “asthmatic” conditions. 60 Wistar rats of 75- 100 g weight were divided in two lots: control and ovalbumin challenged animals. Ten animals of each lot were send to Cacica, Turda and Dej Salt Mine for 14 days and maintained in the salt mine medium, as in speleotherapy treatment. Pulmonary and dermal fibroblasts cultures were prepared from Wistar rat lung and respectively dermal tissue. The complex picture of results was analysed and explained through biological mechanisms comparing to the control cell cultures obtained from healthy, untreated Wistar rats. In this article, we describe the supposed biological mechanisms that explain the protective effects of speleotherapy. Speleotherapy induces changes on the morphology and protein expression of pulmonary and dermal fibroblasts in vitro, and these changes - by comparing with ovalbumin sensitised animals, supports the beneficial effects of speleotherapy. 1. Introduction Speleotherapy, the use of the climate of salt mines and caves, is an accepted but not widely known therapeutic measure in the treatment of chronic obstructive airway diseases. It is established that the microclimate of some caves can beneficially affect respiratory disorders and the salt mine or cave should be considered as an optimal environment for complex respiratory rehabilitation. Speleotherapy – a special kind of climatotherapy, uses the certain conditions of caves and salt mines to cure several diseases, especially respiratory and skin diseases. The cave air is very low on dust, which could cause allergic reactions or 3qirritation; the symptoms of the diseases are reduced or eliminated completely, while the patient is in the cave. But that does not explain how it should have a longer lasting effect. Curing asthma involves spending 2-3 hours a day underground in subterranean caves or salt mines over a 1-2 month period. An old study describes a speleotherapy course, which was 4 hours a day for 6-8 weeks, with 100 COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) and asthma patients and reported improvement that lasted 6 months to 7 years (Skulimowski, 1965). Asthma is a disorder characterized by chronic inflammation of the airways, airways hyper- responsiveness, and changes in airway architecture, termed remodeling. The cells responsible for maintenance of lung structure are the parenchymal cells of the lung, including epithelial cells, mesenchymal cells, and endothelial cells. Recent studies have suggested that the function of epithelial cells, smooth muscle cells, and fibroblasts cultured from lungs of individuals with asthma differs from the function of cells similarly cultured from individuals without asthma. These functional differences, particularly as they relate to repair and remodeling, could contribute to airway structural alterations (Sugiura et al., 2007). Therapy with bronchodilators, corticosteroids, leukotriene inhibitors, mastoid cells stabilizers and recent with IgE receptor antagonists have been shown an improvement of asthma symptoms. The new scientific and practical directions in therapy of the most severe allergic deseases - bronchial asthma - use underground medium of salt mines and caves. This therapy method was name speleotharapy from greece „spelaion”- cave, gap and „therapy”- treatment. Today the speleotherapy is regognized as therapy in underground of salt mines and caves with natural theraoeutic factors for many deseases (Iu.Simionca şi al.,2005, 2008). Primary cell cultures can readily be obtained from human and animal skin using the explant method or trypsynisation. Full thickness skin, also called the integument, is a composite of three layers (epidermis, dermis and subcutaneous tissue), none of which constitutes a homogenous entity. Epidermis normally is composed of keratinocytes, which represent the largest population numerically, and lesser numbers of melanocytes, Langerhans’cells, and occasional cells of the lympho-reticular system, which are, however, transient members of the community. Although the bulk of the dermis is noncellular (collagen and ground substance), within this compartment is also a variety of cell types, including fibroblasts, histicytes, mast cells, macrophages, lymphocytes and Schwann cells, endothelial cells of blood vessels and lymphatics, striated muscle cells of erector pili muscles, and smooth muscle of blood vessels. The subcutaneous tissue includes most of the dermal cell types and fat cells as well (Flaxman, 1974). The current study was designed to investigate the influence of salt mine medium from Cacica, Turda and Dej Salt Mines upon the cell morphology and electrophoretic expression of pulmonary and dermal fibroblasts in vitro obtained from Wistar rats tissues, in normal and Ovalbumin - “asthmatic” conditions. Fibroblasts were cultured from lung and dermal parenchyma of control, ovalbumin-sensitized, and speleotherapy treated rats after ovalbumin- sensitization. Fibroblasts shape in culture can vary in accordance with the substrate, which on they is