Fig. 9

CS suppressed RIG-I and TLR3 transcriptional induction by IFN-β in HBEC from smokers. After HBEC cells were treated with 500U/ml of IFN-β for 6 h, total RNA was extracted and mRNA expression was assessed by qRT-PCR. Transcript levels of RIG-I (a) and TLR3 (b) were normalized relative to the constitutively expressed β-actin gene. Data were expressed as the means ± SEM from three separate experiments from different donors. * denotes significant difference compared to data from the IAV infected cells from nonsmokers (NS + IAV), P < 0.05