1) To establish HGF cultures from healthy gingival tissues for routine study.
2) To investigate the mRNA expression of TLRs (1 - 10) in HGFs.
3) To evaluate the response of HGFs to a variety of highly purified TLR ligand stimulation (LPS from P. gingivalis - TLR2 ligand; Polyinosine-polycytidylic acid (poly I:C) - TLR3 ligand; LPS from Escherichia coli - TLR4 ligand; flagellin from Salmonella thyphimurium - TLR5 ligand; Loxoribine - TLR7 ligand; Single-stranded polyU oligonucleotide - TLR8 ligand; CpG oligonucleotide 2006 - TLR9 ligand) by measuring
3.1 IL-8 production (neutrophil recruiting cytokine)
3.2 IDO production
4) To examine the combination effect of cytokine (interferon gamma (IFN- ) or tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF- )) and TLR ligands on production of IL-8 and IDO
5) To evaluate the role of gingival fibroblast IDO in negative feed back suppression of T cell responses
6) To study the role of TLR ligand stimulated-HGFs in promoting infiltration of dendritic cells, especially plasmacytoid dendritic cells
