Figure 6.

Effects of DHT, E2, and DHT/E2 on MBD2 detection in animal and BECs severe asthma model. (a) Immunohistochemistry analysis (anti-MBD2) of lung tissues from the severe asthma group showed more cells with stained MBD2 positive than asthma and normal control group, whereas the severe asthma+E2 group showed an elevated level of MBD2 positive and on the other hand severe asthma+ DHT reduced the MBD2 stained positive cells showing the androgen therapeutic possibility in MBD2-mediated severe asthma. (b, c) Western blot detection of MBD2 in different groups from the lung sample showed significantly higher MBD2 protein expression in severe asthma than in asthma and normal control group as shown in (b). Severe asthma+E2 showed an obvious increase in MBD2 than the severe asthma+ DHT, and DHT added group significantly reduced MBD2 expression than severe asthma and other hormone added group as shown in (c). Relative protein expression including DHT, E2, and DHT/E2 added groups are also shown in the figure. (d) Western blot detection of MBD2 from different groups of BECs asthma model including the DHT, E2, and DHT/E2 groups. Detected BECs were stimulated with 100 μg/ml HDM as asthma, 100 μg/ml HDM+100 ng/ml LPS as severe asthma, or PBS as a normal control group, sex hormones added in the designated group, and WB detected MBD2. The severe asthma+ DHT group significantly reduced MBD2 expression to the severe asthma and other hormone added group. Relative MBD2 protein expressions were also shown. Scale bar, 20 μm. (^∗p < 0.05, ^∗∗p < 0.01, ns: not significant).