RAGE mediates early recruitment of neutrophils in response to acute cigarette smoke exposure.

<p>The bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) collected from the lungs of RAGE-/- (grey bars) and wild type (black bars) mice (n = 8–15 per strain per group) were used to stain and quantify cells that had migrated into the fluid lining the alveolus. <b>Panel A</b> indicates the total cell counts obtained from the BALF of the different treatment groups on acute cigarette smoke exposure. RAGE-/- mice displayed significantly reduced numbers of neutrophils at 4 hours post- smoke exposure as compared to their wild type counterparts, as shown in <b>Panel B</b>. There was no significant alteration observed in the number of macrophages or monocytes (<b>Panel C</b>) and lymphocytes (<b>Panel D</b>) recruited in either the RAGE-/- or wild type mice at 4 hours post-acute smoke exposure. The error bars indicate the standard error mean (SEM) within each group/treatment/time point (* p≤0.05 indicates statistical significance by unpaired 2-tailed student t-test).