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. 2014 May 16;307(2):L149–L157. doi: 10.1152/ajplung.00396.2012

Fig. 3.

Fig. 3.

Nicotine changes the sizes of mucin self-assembly gels. Nicotine increased the equilibrium mucin gel particle sizes. After addition of 50 μM nicotine to 5 μm-filtered human airway mucin (70 μg/l) prepared in HBSS (Tris·HCl/MES, pH 7.3) for 24, 48, 72, and 96, the sizes of mucin gels (■; P < 0.001; n ≥ 14; 1-way ANOVA) were significantly larger than the control (mucin-only; ●; n ≥ 14). The nicotine-treated mucin gel sizes (■, P < 0.01; n ≥ 14; 1-way ANOVA) were also markedly larger than mucin gels prepared in 0.6 M NaCl HBSS with 50 μM nicotine (Tris·HCl/MES, pH 7.3) (▲; n ≥ 10) after 24 h of incubation. Hydrodynamic mucin gel sizes of EGTA-nicotine-treated (◻ P < 0.01; n ≥ 8; 1-way ANOVA) and EGTA-high-salt-nicotine-treated (△; P < 0.01; n ≥ 12; 1-way ANOVA) samples were larger than that of EGTA-treated mucin control (○; n ≥ 14) after 24 h of EGTA treatment. Data were presented as means ± SD; n represents the number of independent experimental samples investigated.