Figure 7

Protein expression pattern in BALF fibroblast cultures from patients with SSc and mild asthma. Cells were cultured in six-well plates and harvested as described in the Method section. The lysed cells were separated by 2-DE. A representative 2-D gel from asthma and SSc BALF fibroblasts are presented and the significant differentially expressed spots when are marked with arrows (A). The identified differentially expressed proteins in fibroblasts from BALF in patients with mild asthma and SSc was identified using sequencing MALDI-TOF-TOF (B). IOD (ppm) is the optical density of the spots correlated to the total optical density for all spots present in the gel. Abbreviations: Acc No. = Swissprot accession number; MW = Molecular weight. IOD (ppm) = Optical density of the spots correlated to the total optical density for all spots present in the gel. Peptide count = Number of identified peptides that could be matched to the suggested database protein. Protein Score = Probability that the peptide counts are derived from the suggested database protein.