An exacerbation of COPD caused by H. influenzae was defined by the onset of clinical symptoms of an exacerbation simultaneous with the CH5183284 clinical trial acquisition of a new strain of H. influenzae that had not previously been isolated from that

patient based on molecular typing [54]. Proteasome inhibitor Serum samples collected one month prior to acquisition of the strain and one month following the exacerbation were used to analyze human serum antibody responses to the purified recombinant urease C. Pooled human sputum Expectorated sputum samples were collected from subjects in the COPD Study Clinic and were processed for culture as previously described [54, 62]. Briefly, sputum samples were homogenized by incubation at 37°C for 15 minutes with an equal volume of 0.1% dithiothreitol. After an aliquot was removed for quantitative culture, sputum samples were centrifuged at 27,000 × g for 30 minutes at 4°C and supernatants were stored at -80°C until used. Samples from patients who were receiving antibiotics and samples that grew potential pulmonary bacterial pathogens in culture were excluded. find more Supernatants from

approximately 100 sputum samples from 30 individuals were pooled for the purpose of growing bacteria in pooled sputum supernatants [13]. To render the sputum supernatants sterile, the pooled samples were placed in Petri dishes and exposed to UV light in a cell culture hood for approximately 10 minutes. An aliquot was plated on chocolate agar and no growth was detected after overnight incubation. Quantitative real time PCR H. influenzae was grown in the presence pooled human sputum from adults with COPD to simulate conditions in the human respiratory much tract. To assess transcription of ureC, strain

11P6H was grown overnight in chemically defined media (CDM) at 37°C with shaking to which pooled human sputum supernatant of 20% of the volume of the culture was added [13]. A second culture was grown simultaneously in CDM to which PBS containing 0.1% dithiothreitol was added to 20% of the total volume as a control for the sputum supernatant. Cells were harvested by centrifugation at 10,000 × g for 10 minutes at 4°C. Cells were washed by suspending in cold PBS and centrifuging again using the same conditions. Bacterial RNA was isolated as described above (Reverse Transcriptase-PCR). Quantitative real time PCR was performed using the BioRad MyiQ Real-Time PCR Detection System. Oligonucleotide primers pairs (Table 2) were designed with Primer 3 software. Each reaction mixture contained 5 ng purified RNA, 100 nM of each primer, 12.5 μl 2 × Sybr Green Supermix (BioRad), 0.125 μl reverse transcriptase and 6.375 μl water. Controls lacking reverse transcriptase or RNA template contained the appropriate volume of water in place of enzyme or template. Each purified RNA sample was tested for DNA contamination prior to proceeding with the real time PCR assay.