About the Authors

Giusy Daniela Albano

Contributed equally to this work with: Giusy Daniela Albano, Caterina Di Sano

Affiliations Unit: “ Ex vivo/In vitro models to study the Immunopathology and the Pharmacology of airway diseases”, Institute of Biomedicine and Molecular Immunology, Italian National Research Council, Palermo, Italy, Dipartimento Biomedico di Medicina, Interna e Specialistica, Sezione di Pneumologia, University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy

Caterina Di Sano

Contributed equally to this work with: Giusy Daniela Albano, Caterina Di Sano

Affiliation Unit: “ Ex vivo/In vitro models to study the Immunopathology and the Pharmacology of airway diseases”, Institute of Biomedicine and Molecular Immunology, Italian National Research Council, Palermo, Italy

Anna Bonanno

Affiliation Unit: “ Ex vivo/In vitro models to study the Immunopathology and the Pharmacology of airway diseases”, Institute of Biomedicine and Molecular Immunology, Italian National Research Council, Palermo, Italy

Loredana Riccobono

Affiliation Unit: “ Ex vivo/In vitro models to study the Immunopathology and the Pharmacology of airway diseases”, Institute of Biomedicine and Molecular Immunology, Italian National Research Council, Palermo, Italy

Rosalia Gagliardo

Affiliation Unit: “ Ex vivo/In vitro models to study the Immunopathology and the Pharmacology of airway diseases”, Institute of Biomedicine and Molecular Immunology, Italian National Research Council, Palermo, Italy

Pascal Chanez

Affiliations Département des Maladies Respiratoires, AP-HM, Université de la Méditerranée, Marseille, France, INSERM-CNRS U600, UMR6212, Université de la Méditerranée, Marseille, France

Mark Gjomarkaj

Affiliation Unit: “ Ex vivo/In vitro models to study the Immunopathology and the Pharmacology of airway diseases”, Institute of Biomedicine and Molecular Immunology, Italian National Research Council, Palermo, Italy

Angela Marina Montalbano

Affiliation Unit: “ Ex vivo/In vitro models to study the Immunopathology and the Pharmacology of airway diseases”, Institute of Biomedicine and Molecular Immunology, Italian National Research Council, Palermo, Italy

Giulia Anzalone

Affiliation Unit: “ Ex vivo/In vitro models to study the Immunopathology and the Pharmacology of airway diseases”, Institute of Biomedicine and Molecular Immunology, Italian National Research Council, Palermo, Italy

Stefania La Grutta

Affiliations Unit: “ Ex vivo/In vitro models to study the Immunopathology and the Pharmacology of airway diseases”, Institute of Biomedicine and Molecular Immunology, Italian National Research Council, Palermo, Italy, Environmental Health Unit, ARPA Palermo, Palermo, Italy

Fabio Luigi Massimo Ricciardolo

Affiliation Division of Respiratory Disease, Department of Clinical and Biological Sciences, University of Torino, Torino, Italy

Mirella Profita

profita@ibim.cnr.it

Affiliation Unit: “ Ex vivo/In vitro models to study the Immunopathology and the Pharmacology of airway diseases”, Institute of Biomedicine and Molecular Immunology, Italian National Research Council, Palermo, Italy

Competing Interests

The authors have the following interests: the study had financial support from Italchimici. There are no patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. This does not alter the adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Selected pediatric patients: SLG. Conceived and designed the experiments: CDS GDA MP. Performed the experiments: RG LR AB AMM GA. Analyzed the data: MG FLMR. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: MP. Wrote the paper: MP PC.