Linking Endotoxins, African Dust PM₁₀ and Asthma in an Urban and Rural Environment of Puerto Rico

Figure 7

Gene expression of (a) Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) and (b) Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) in BEAS-2B exposed for 12 and 7 hours, respectively, to ADE/non-ADE PM₁₀ organic extracts from the rural and urban sites at 10 µg/mL and 5 µg/mL, respectively, with and without ENX inhibition by Polymyxin B (PMB) at 10 µg/mL. Peptidoglycans (PGN) at 100 µg/mL and LPS at 10 µg/mL were used as positive controls for TLR2 and TLR4, respectively. Induction of TLRs was normalized to GAPDH expression. Bars represent mean mRNA fold induction ± SEM, ; of three to four independent experiments. Individual asterisks represent statistical significance compared to DMSO and those over line significance between adjacent columns.

(a)

(b)