Fig. 2

Quercetin improves expression and localization of occludin and E-cadherin to intercellular junctions in COPD cell cultures. COPD and normal cell cultures (6 subjects in each group) were cultured at air/liquid interface for 8 days as described in Fig. 1. Cultures were fixed in cold methanol, blocked with BSA and incubated with antibody to occludin and E-cadherin and the bound antibodies were detected by antimouse IgG conjugated with AlexaFluor 488 (occludin) and antirabbit IgG conjugated with AlexaFluor 594 (E-cadherin). The nuclei were counterstained with DAPI and the cells were imaged using confocal microscopy. A. Images are representative of cultures from 6 subjects. The arrows represent localization of occludin and E-cadherin. B and C. The fluorescence intensity of occludin and E-cadherin was measured as pixels from all 6 subjects and presented as median with range. (n = 6, ANOVA on ranks with Kruskal Wallace post-hoc analysis, *p ≤ 0.05, different from normal; # p ≤ 0.05, different from COPD-P).