FIG. 6.

Intracellular signaling pathway of P. aeruginosa-stimulated NF-κB activation in HAECs. Dominant negative (DN) human TIRAP (0.25 μg) or Tollip and dominant negative human MyD88, IRAK, or TRAF6 at a concentration of 0.25 or 0.5 μg, together with 0.3 μg of the hBD2 promoter-driven firefly luciferase gene and 10 ng of the Renilla luciferase reporter gene, was used for each well. Empty vector plasmids were used to make total amounts of DNA in the transfectants equal. Cells were challenged with 100 CFU/cell of heat-killed PAO1 or PAK for 18 h, and dual-luciferase assays were performed to measure induction of the luciferase activity. The values are percentages of the bacterium-stimulated induction in mock transfection experiments. The data are means ± standard errors for at least two independent experiments. Samples were compared to stimulation with mock transfection. An asterisk indicates that the P value is <0.001.