Gene expression analysis of bronchial epithelial cells stimulated by different airway pathogens.

Bronchial epithelial cells represent the first line of defense against invading airborne pathogens. They are important contributors to innate mucosal immunity and provide a variety of anti-microbial effectors. To investigate the role of epithelial cells upon infection of airway pathogens, we stimulated BEAS-2B cells for 4 h with UV-inactivated bronchial pathogens including Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Respiratory Syncitial Virus (RSV) that among other receptors can strongly activate TLR2, TLR4 and TLR3, respectively. Keywords: expression profiling, response to pathogens All conditions were done in triplicates except for Staphylococcus aureus, were two replicates were done. As a control, unstimulated BEAS-2B were used. Altogether 11 arrays were hybridized.