Fig. 7.

Inhibition of ERK, p38, and JNK in hBD-2-, hBD-3-, TNF-α-, and IL-1β-induced release of CCL20 by HOECs. HOEC monolayers (mixed donors; N = 3) were pretreated with inhibitors of ERK-specific (UO126 [20 μM] or PD98059 [20 μM]), p38-specific (SB203580 [20 μM]), or JNK-specific inhibitors (SP600125 [20 μM]), respectively, for 1 h, followed by treatment with hBD-2 (5 μg/ml) (A), hBD-3 (5 μg/ml) (B), TNF-α (10 μg/ml) (C), or IL-1β (10 μg/ml) (D) for an additional 18 h. DMSO was used as the negative control. CCL20 levels in the spent supernatants were measured by ELISA. Results are means ± standard deviations of three independent experiments. *, P < 0.05.