Figure 2.
Nasal polyp derived fibroblasts decrease ciliated epithelial cells and increase epithelial permeability. (A) Top-down: Epithelial β-tubulin IV immunofluorescence for hSNECs + Control-hSNFs and hSNECs + CRSwNP-hSNFs. Orthogonal image: B-tubulin IV (green), E-cadherin (red), FOXJ1 (white), DAPI (blue) (B) Expression of TUBB4B and FOXJ1 mRNA relative to monoculture hSNECs. (C) Percentage of FOXJ1+ cells calculated by immunofluorescence. (D) β-tubulin IV immunofluorescence intensity relative to monoculture hSNECs Mean Gray Value. (E) Transepithelial permeability assessed by FITC-dextran flux. For B–E: hSNECs (−), hSNECs + Control-hSNFs (con), hSNECs + CRSwNP-hSNFs (wNP). All images use 40x magnification. Scale bar: 50μm. Data is presented as mean±SEM. *p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001