FIGURE 2.

Effects of bacterial exposure on monocyte-derived macrophage cytokine gene expression. Monocyte-derived macrophages from five COPD patients were exposed to Haemophilus influenzae (HI), Moraxella catarrhalis (MC) or Streptococcus pneumoniae (SP) at a multiplicity of infection of 5:1 or left unexposed (control) for 4, 24 or 72 h. mRNA expression levels of a) tumour necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), b) interleukin-6 (IL-6), c) C-X-C motif chemokine ligand (CXCL8) and d) IL-1β were measured by quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR (RT-qPCR). Data presented as median±range. RT-qPCR data expression relative to endogenous control (2^−ΔΔC_t). *^,**^,***: significantly above unexposed control (p<0.05, 0.01, 0.001, respectively).