Unclassified or unclassifiable interstitial lung disease: confusing or helpful disease category?: Table 1–

Abstract

Introduction: Thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP) is thought to increase foxp3 expression and epithelial barrier elements. We aimed to investigate classical and experimental asthma treatments on TSLP, fox p3 and epithelial barrier element ZO-1. Methods: We developed experimental asthma model using intraperitoneal (IP) and inhaled ovalbumin in 32 BALB/c mice which were grouped into four. Each group received either IP saline, IP etanercet (anti-TNF), IP bevacizumab (anti-VEGF) or IP dexamethasone. TSLP, fox p3 and ZO-1 were stained on lung samples with immunohistochemical indirect avidin-peroxidase method and semi-quantified with H-score. Results: TSLP was found to decrease in each of the dexamethasone, anti-TNF and anti-VEGF groups compared to untreated asthma group (p=0.004, p=0.003 and p=0.002 respectively). However, treatment groups were not significantly different from each other. Conclusion: Our results demonstrate that conventional and experimental asthma treatments decrease TSLP but this decrease does not have an influence on foxp3 or ZO-1. The epithelial barrier enhancing properties of TSLP that have been demonstrated in previous research might be through proteins of epithelial barrier structure other than ZO-1.