RNA-seq of MucilAir co-cultured with primary human alveolar macrophages exposed to traffic-related air pollution compared to clean air controls

One aim of this experiment was to evaluate the effects of traffic-related air pollution (TRAP) on MucilAir co-cultured with primary human alveolar macrophages as a realistic in vitro model. Further aims were to determine the variability between exposure days and MucilAir donors. Therefore, MucilAir cultures from three different donors were combined with primary human alveolar macrophages from a fourth donor. On three consecutive days, six MucilAir co-cultures, two from each MucilAir donor, were transferred to a Vitrocell Automated Exposure Station (AES). In the AES, one co-culture per MucilAir donor was exposed for 6 hours to TRAP and the other to clean air as control. Subsequently, RNA was isolated from each co-culture. For each donor, the clean air control RNA from the three exposure days was pooled. A total of 12 resulting samples, 1 pooled clean air control sample per donor and 3 TRAP-exposure samples per donor, were subjected to RNA sequencing.