Influenza A virus (IAV) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Surfactant proteins A and D (SP-A and SP-D) are important lung innate immune proteins and have been shown in vitro and in mice to both neutralize and enhance the clearance of various IAV strains. In this study we hypothesized that SP-A and SP-D levels will be lower in human bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluids from patients who have tested positive for influenza, as well as bacterial or fungal pathogens compared to controls. We have found that patients who have detectable IAV, bacteria or fungus have lower levels of SP-A and SP-D as detected by western blot analysis and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) when compared to controls. Also, we found minor differences in the oligomerization and no differences in the glycosylation of SP-A and SP-D among BALs that detected the proteins on a Western blot.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/25437 |
| Date | 15 December 2010 |
| Creators | Bresner, Lauren Alison |
| Contributors | Palaniyar, Nades |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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