Figure 1

Representative western blots of three sputum extracts containing low (n°36), medium (n°25) and high (n°9) flagellin concentrations. Four concentrations of protein (1, 2.5, 5 and 10 μg/well) from 3 different expectorations and standard curve of flagellin (0.1, 0.25, 0.5, and 1.0 ng/well) were loaded on 10% acrylamide gel and fractionated by SDS-PAGE (see Methods). Note i) that the recombinant non glycosylated flagellin (right hand side) has a molecular weight lower (40 kD) than the native flagellin (left hand side) present in the sputum (49 kD) and corresponding to flagellin type b, and 2) the presence a faint band with a 40 kD mw observed for patients 25 and 9, and corresponding to flagellin type a.