Figure 5.

Pre-treatment with H₂O₂ tends to impair poly(I:C)-induced anti-viral responses in COPD bronchial epithelium. HBECs from COPD patients were pre-treated with H₂O₂ for 30 min followed by stimulation with poly(I:C). Cells were harvested for gene and protein expression analysis after 3 and 24 h, respectively. Gene expression levels of IFNβ (A), TLR3 (B), RIG-I, (C) and MDA5 (D) were measured by real-time PCR and data is presented as mean ± standard error of the mean (SEM) fold change of unstimulated control relative to UBC/GAPDH expression. Comparison of different groups was performed by Kruskal-Wallis with Wilcoxon post-testing. ^##p < 0.01, ^###p < 0.001 vs. un-stimulated (CTRL); **p < 0.01 vs. poly(I:C). Data was obtained from 6 donors. A representative western blot image (data from 2 donors) of RIG-I and MDA5 (E) and TLR3 (F) protein is shown.