Patterns Of Gene Expression In Human Airway Epithelial Cells

It is becoming clear that the information obtained from measurement of gene expression is much more mechanistic when the relative level of gene expression is determined in tissue as opposed to absolute quantification of individual genes. Considering this, we have developed methods for simultaneous measurement of multiple genes by quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) amplification. Our initial efforts have been directed at characterizing patterns of expression of xenobiotic metabolism enzyme genes. We first determined which of 16 phase 1 and phase 2 metabolism genes are expressed in airway epithelial or alveolar macrophage cells. 1 Willey J Coy E Brolly C et al. Xenobiotic metabolism enzyme gene expression in human bronchial epithelial and alveolar macrophage cells.. Am J Respir Cell Mol Biol. 1996; 14: 262-271 Crossref PubMed Scopus (103) Google Scholar We then used quantitative RT-PCR to determine patterns of gene expression in human airway epithelial cells from smokers and nonsmokers.