Induction of immune tolerance and reduction of aggravated lung eosinophilia by co-exposure to Asian sand dust and ovalbumin for 14 weeks in mice

Table 1 Evaluation of pathological changes in the murine airway

	Pathological changes
Group*	Proliferation of goblet cells	Eosinophils	Lymphocytes	Thickening of bronchial wall
4-Control	0	0	0	0
4-ASD	0.31 ± 0.16	0.06 ± 0.06	0.75 ± 0.13^§	0.75 ± 0.09
4-OVA	0.63 ± 0.18	0.39 ± 0.14	0.94 ± 0.18^‡	0.63 ± 0.26
4-O+A	3.43 ± 0.17^{† ¶ I}	3.14 ± 0.24^{† ¶ I}	3.57 ± 0.20^{† ¶ I}	3.14 ± 0.26^{† ¶ I}
8-Control	0	0	0	0
8-ASD	0.06 ± 0.06	0.06 ± 0.06	1.19 ± 0.19^**	0.88 ± 0.16 ^‡‡
8-OVA	0.94 ± 0.29^††	0.19 ± 0.13	1.38 ± 0.13^**	0.81 ± 0.16 ^‡‡
8-O+A	1.81 ± 0.21^{** §§ ††† ‡‡‡}	0.88 ± 0.30^{†† ¶¶ *** ‡‡‡}	2.19 ± 0.21^{** §§ ††† ‡‡‡}	2.00 ± 0.21^{** §§ II ‡‡‡}

Data are mean ± SD values.
^*Four groups of mice were treated intratracheally with normal saline (4-Cont), ASD (4-ASD), ovalbumin (4-OVA) and OVA + ASD (4-O+A) four times at two-week intervals. The other four groups of mice were treated intratracheally with normal saline (8-Cont), ASD (8-ASD), ovalbumin (8-OVA) and OVA + ASD (8-O+A) eight times at two-week intervals. The degree of pathological changes in the airway was estimated: (0) none; (1) slight; (2) mild; (3) moderate; (4) moderate to marked; (5) marked. All values were expressed as mean ± SD (n = 8). Statistical analyses were conducted using Tukey for Pairwise Comparisons.
^†p < 0.001 vs. 4-Control, ^‡p < 0.01 vs. 4-Control, ^§p < 0.05 vs. 4-Control, ^¶p < 0.001 vs. 4-ASD,^Ip < 0.001 vs. 4-OVA,^**p < 0.001 vs. 8-Control, ^††p < 0.01 vs. 8-Control, ^‡‡p < 0.05 vs. 8-Control, ^§§p < 0.001 vs. 8-ASD, ^¶¶p < 0.01 vs. 8-ASD, ^IIp < 0.001 vs. 8-OVA, ^†††p < 0.01 vs. 8-OVA, ^***p < 0.05 vs. 8-OVA, ^‡‡‡p < 0.05 vs. 4-O+A.

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