Fig. 4.

Azithromycin alters genes involved in lysosomal pathways. a Heat map of microarray analysis in primary control lung fibroblasts (n = 5) is shown. Presented are the 24 most differently regulated genes (p ≤0.005). Several genes are involved in lysosomal pathways. b, c: To compare control and IPF fibroblasts, RAB7b and TMEM55b were analyzed by qPCR. b RAB7b was significantly more downregulated after additional AZT (T + A) compared to TGF-β alone in IPF fibroblasts but not in controls (n = 4) (*p-value ≤0.05). c TMEM55b was significantly upregulated after additional AZT (T + A) compared to TGF-β alone in IPF fibroblasts but not in controls (n = 4) (*p-value ≤0.05, ***p-value ≤0.001). d-f Cathepsin b, c and d were analyzed by qPCR comparing control and IPF fibroblasts. d Cathepsin b was significantly higher upregulated after additional AZT in control fibroblasts compared to IPF (*p-value ≤0.05). e Cathepsin C was significantly downregulated in control and IPF fibroblasts after additional AZT (T + A) compared to TGF-β alone (*p-value ≤0.05). f Cathepsin D was not significantly altered after additional AZT (T + A) compared to TGF-β. All experiments were performed in at least three independent settings. One-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s post test was used for statistical analysis