Figure 3. Total cells recovered by lung lavage from Balb/c mice exposed to filtered air or Ova aerosol for 1 week.

Of the filtered air exposed mice, the mean cells present in their lavage was 8.21±0.8×10⁴ cells (pooled data from all groups, n = 41). There was a significant increase in the number of total lung lavage cells in each of the four ovalbumin exposed groups compared to the corresponding air-exposed animals (p<0.01 compared to all Ova groups). Ova-exposed mice treated with Dex-NP had significantly fewer total cells in the lung lavage than Ova-exposed mice (PBS-treated) alone (2.78±0.44×105 (n = 18) vs. 5.98±1.3×105 (n = 13) respectively, P = 0.013). Data are presented as mean values±SEM. *denotes p<0.05 and analyzed by Student’s T-test.