Fig. 6.

TLR4⁺ B cells are increased in patients with CF. a Representative confocal images of triple-color immunofluorescence staining of representative pulmonary lymphoid follicles (LFs) from subjects with CF (bottom panels) and normal controls (top panels). B cells are identified by staining with red fluorophore for CD20. TLR4 is identified by staining with green fluorophore. 4′6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (blue) was used to counterstain the nuclei. The final panel in each row is a merged file of CD20, TLR4 and DAPI staining. The percentage of TLR4⁺ B cells was quantified in lung tissue from CF subjects (n = 7) and normal controls (n = 5). There was significant increase in TLR4⁺ B cells in subjects with CF compared to controls (b). Images were taken at 10X using a Nikon Eclipse 80i microscope. Mann-Whitney U test was used to perform the statistical analysis. Box plots show the median values and 25th and 75th percentiles, and error bars show the 10th and 90th percentiles. *p = 0.003, CF versus normal controls