Therefore, hBD2 and hBD9 were chosen Baf-A1 purchase for further analysis of VX-680 order defensin expression by 16HBE and A549 cells exposed to A. fumigatus. Figure 1 RT-PCR analysis of various defensin expression levels in human 16HBE epithelial bronchial cells exposed to A. fumigatus organisms. 16HBE human epithelial tracheal cells (5 × 106) were grown in six well plates for 24 hours. After exposing the cells to RC, SC, HF or latex beads for 18 hours, the cells were washed with PBS, mRNA was isolated by TRIzol Reagent and RT-PCR was performed as described above in Materials and Methods.

Specific primer pairs (Table 1) were used for RNA amplification: hBD1, 273 bp product; hBD2, 199 bp product; hBD8, 176 bp product; hBD9, 174 bp product; hBD18, 400 bp product and human GAPDH, which was used as an internal control, 473-bp product. All products were amplified according to the conditions described in Table 1. Cells were cultivated in a control well in the absence of A. fumigatus. As a positive control for defensin expression, exposure to human Il-1β was used in all experiments. The hBD1, hBD2 and hBD9 products were sequenced and confirmed to be identical to the predicted sequence. GAPDH was uniformly Microbiology inhibitor expressed. One of the four experiments is shown. Abbreviations: resting conidia (RC), swollen conidia (SC), hyphal fragments (HF), glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate

dehydrogenase (GAPDH), interleukin-1β (Il–1β). Table 1 Primer sequences, annealing temperatures and product size medroxyprogesterone (RT-PCR). Primers Sequences Conditions Product size hBD1f

hBD1r 5′-agcgtctccccagttcctgaaatcct-3′ 5′-tcttctggtcactcccagctcacttg-3′ 38 cycles, 61°C 273 bp hBD2f hBD2r 5′-catcagccatgagggtcttg-3′ 3′-ggctttttgcagcattttgt-3′ 38 cycles, 61°C, 2.5% DMSO 199 bp hBD8f hBD8r 5′-tactcacctccagccttttgtcatcc-3′ 5′-gggtgtagtgctctcaattcttggttg-3′ 38 cycles, 61°C 176 bp hBD9f hBD9r 5′-tgcagtaagaggtgatttgg-3′ 5′-tgacatgataagtggtgttgg-3′ 32 cycles, 56°C 174 bp hBD18f hBD18r 5′-cctgcttcccaaggaccatgaaactc-3′ 5′-ccgagaggaagtcatgagctatggtg-3′ 38 cycles, 61°C 400 bp GAPDHf GAPDHr 5′-cccatcaccatcttccagagc-3′ 5′-ccagtgagcttcccgttcagc-3′ 32 cycles, 61°C 473 bp Role of serum in defensin expression by human pneumocytes and tracheal epithelial cells exposed to A. fumigatus In order to investigate the potential role of the serum and to set up the experimental conditions necessary for analysing the inducible expression of defensins by the human respiratory epithelium exposed to A. fumigatus, 16HBE and A549 human airway epithelial cells were incubated with A. fumigatus organisms (HF and SC or RC) or latex beads in the presence of either 10% heterologous Fetal Calf Serum (FCS) or 5% autologous human serum. Expression of hBD2 and hBD9 was evaluated. As a positive control, Il-1β was used in experiments. The cells were exposed to 106 of A. fumigatus conidia or 20 μl of A. fumigatus HF solution or 5 × 106 latex beads for various periods from 4 h to 18 h.