Effect of Esc(1–21)-1c on the expression level of different inflammatory-related genes (panel a) and airway epithelial-associated genes (panel b). Gene expression in the lungs of P. aeruginosa infected mice after a single or a double peptide administration (at 0.1 mg/kg) was investigated at 24 hours after bacterial infection. Mice were intra-tracheally infected with 3 million PAO1 cells. The peptides were administered intra-tracheally at 2 μg (0.1 mg/kg) at 2 hours and 12 hours after the infection. After 24 hours from bacterial challenge, the RNA was extracted from the lung tissue and quantitative PCR was performed as described54. Results are mean ± SEM from three independent experiments; n = 4–6 mice for each treatment group. The t-test was used to compare the means of PBS-receiving non-infected mice (control) versus PBS-treated infected animals. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used peptide-treated infected mice and PBS-treated infected animals, posthoc comparisons were made using the Dunnett’s multiple comparison test when the P-value was significant (p < 0.05). *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001 for peptide-treated infected mice or PBS-receiving non-infected mice (control) versus PBS-treated infected animals.