Fig. 2

PAH altered P90 induced effects on mucociliary clearance in the ex vivo murine trachea. a Mucus on the epithelium was stained with a mixture of wheat germ agglutinin (WGA) and Ulex europaeus agglutinin-1 (UEA-1) after exposure to P90. White arrows indicate mucus structures associated with P90 agglomerates. b P90 agglomerates attached to cilia of ciliated epithelial cells. Red arrows indicate P90 agglomerates. c, d Ciliary beat frequency (c) and particle transport speed (d) after exposure to 10 μg/ml P90. e-h Ciliary beat frequency (e, f) and particle transport speed (g, h) after exposure to 10 μg/ml P90-BaP or P90-9NA. i, j Ciliary beat frequency (i) and particle transport speed (j) after exposure to 10 μg/ml AS-PAH. k-n Particle transport speed after exposure to 30 μg/ml P90 (k), P90-BaP (l), P90-9NA (m) and AS-PAH (n). c, e, f, i Each point represents the mean ciliary beat frequency of at least 50 ciliated cells measured at eight different tracheal regions of each animal. d, g, h, k-n Each point represents the mean particle transport speed of added polystyrene particles measured at eight different tracheal regions of each mouse. A minimum of n = 5 animals were analyzed. The exposure time was 24 h for all experiments. p < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. The medium controls were compared to CBNP exposure analyzed by Wilcoxon signed-rank test