beta defensin-2 is reduced in central but not in distal airways of smoker copd patientsβdefensin-2减少但不是在远端中部航空吸烟者慢性阻塞性肺病患者.pdfVIP

Beta Defensin-2 Is Reduced in Central but Not in Distal Airways of Smoker COPD Patients 1 . 1. 2 3 3 Elisabetta Pace * , Maria Ferraro , Marta Ida Minervini , Patrizio Vitulo , Loredana Pipitone , 1 1 1 4 Giuseppina Chiappara , Liboria Siena , Angela Marina Montalbano , Malcolm Johnson , Mark Gjomarkaj1 1 Institute of Biomedicine and Molecular Immunology, National Research Council, Palermo, Italy, 2 Department of Pathology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States of America, 3 Mediterranean Institute for Transplantation and for High Specialised Therapies, ISMETT, Palermo, Italy, 4 GlaxoSmithKline Research and Development Ltd., Uxbridge, Middlesex, United Kingdom Abstract Background: Altered pulmonary defenses in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) may promote distal airways bacterial colonization. The expression/activation of Toll Like receptors (TLR) and beta 2 defensin (HBD2) release by epithelial cells crucially affect pulmonary defence mechanisms. Methods: The epithelial expression of TLR4 and of HBD2 was assessed in surgical specimens from current smokers COPD (s- COPD; n = 17), ex-smokers COPD (ex-s-COPD; n = 8), smokers without COPD (S; n = 12), and from non-smoker non-COPD subjects (C; n = 13). Results: In distal airways, s-COPD highly expressed TLR4 and HBD2. In central airways, S and s-COPD showed increased TLR4 expression. Lower HBD2 expression was observed in central airways of s-COPD when compared to S and to ex-s-COPD. s- COPD had a reduced HBD2 gene expression as demonstrated by real-time PCR on