Figure 1

Significant up-regulation of RAGE was observed by immunofluorescence using sections of adult mouse lung from wild type dams (A and B) and age-matched RAGE KO animals (C and D). Specifically, red RAGE immunofluorescence was increased in wild type lungs exposed to SHS (B) compared to room air controls (A) and no expression was detected in RAGE KO animals exposed to room air (C) or SHS (D). Images were at 100X original magnification and scale bars equal 100 nm. Immunoblotting using 10 μg of total lung protein revealed marked up-regulation of RAGE in lungs exposed to SHS compared to room air controls (E). Densitometry of RAGE revealed an approximate 100% increase in protein expression (F) and quantitative RT-PCR revealed a significant up-regulation of RAGE mRNA (G). Immunoblotting and qPCR data are representative of experiments performed in triplicate and statistical differences are noted (*P ≤0.05).