Figure 2.

Comparison of biofilm exposed RHG with unexposed RHG over a 7 day exposure period. (a) Epithelial thickness, as determined from H & E stained sections, is increased in biofilm exposed RHG at day 7. (b,c) number of PCNA and Ki67 positive staining cells per mm² epithelium, as determined from immune-histochemical staining of paraffin embedded tissue sections is shown: the number of PCNA-positive cells is higher in biofilm exposed RHG at day 1; biofilm exposed RHG maintain a constant number of Ki67 positive staining cells whereas control RHG senesce. (d) Elafin ELISA shows increased Elafin secretion into biofilm exposed RHG culture supernatant compared to control RHG. Open bar = control medium without biofilm exposed RHG; black bar = multi-species biofilm exposed RHG. Tissue samples were analyzed after 1, 2, 4 and 7 days biofilm exposure. Data represent the average of three independent experiments, each with an intra-experiment duplicate ± SEM; *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001; unpaired t-test for comparison between exposed group and unexposed group and 2-way ANOVA followed by Bonferroni’s multiple comparison for comparison between time and treatment.