Figure 4.

CD46 induced autophagy against H2O2-induced airway epithelial cell apoptosis in the controls and asthmatic patients. (A) To detect the role of CD46-induced autophagy in early apoptotic cells with Annexin V-positive but PI-negative primary nasal epithelium cells after exposure to hydrogen peroxide, a FITC Annexin V/propidium iodide Apoptosis Detection Kit I (BD Pharmingen, USA) was used. CD46 mAb (5 μg/ml) and/or autophagy inhibitor 3-methyladenine (3-MA) (10 mmol/L) (Sigma-Aldrich, St. Louis, MO) was co-incubated with primary nasal epithelium cells (1 × 10⁵ cells) from the asthmatic patients and then cultured with H2O2 (0.5 mM) for 1 hour followed by 8 hours recovery. Representative figures are shown. (B) Statistical data of the experiments with 30 paired samples. The Kruskal-Wallis test was used to determine significant differences. *p < 0.05 after treatment and ^#p < 0.05 compared to the control group.