Additional file 2: of Airway epithelial cells exposed to wildfire smoke extract exhibit dysregulated autophagy and barrier dysfunction consistent with COPD

Figure S2. THP1 macrophages demonstrate a block in autophagic flux when exposed to WFSE. A. THP1 macrophages (differentiated using 45 nM phorbol myristate acetate for three days) were exposed to wildfire smoke extract (WFSE) for 24 h and examined for modulation in autophagy via western blot analysis. As observed in the small airway epithelial cell model, the 10% WFSE exposure potentiates a block in autophagic flux in THP1 macrophages as evidenced by an increase in the essential autophagy protein Microtubule-Associated Protein 1A/1B-Light Chain-3-II (LC3-II; lower band), simultaneous with increased Sequestosome, which is normally degraded by the autolysosome. B. Histogram analyses of protein expression density scores. Protein expression was baselined to the abundance in the untreated sample, and normalized to the expression of β-actin. Intervals are 95% CI, and significance compared to the control sample can be identified when confidence intervals do not intersect 1 for the Y-axis. *, P ≤ 0.05; **, P ≤ 0.01 for n = 3 experiments. (TIF 633 kb