Recombinant HA proteins bind to human airway epithelial (HAE) cultures.

<p>(A) Morphological features of HAE cultures visualized by H&E counterstain. Cell types present include ciliated cells (C), mucin-secreting cells (MS) and non-ciliated cells (NC). HAE cultures were probed with recombinant HA proteins from human H3 (A/Panama/2007/99) (B,C) or avian H5 (A/Vietnam/1194/04) (D,E) viruses either directly to the apical surface of fixed cultures (B,D) or to histological sections (C,E). Receptor binding site mutants of H5 HA (F–J) were also analysed for binding to histological sections. Ciliated cells were identified using anti acetylated α-tubulin (green) and the HA-Fc proteins were visualized with anti human-Fc (red). Images are representative of cell-type binding seen in experiments. (K) Numbers and types of epithelial cells bound by HA proteins were quantified by counting 100–200 total cells from five different fields of view.