TLR9 and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: Among ex-smokers with COPD, TLR9(T1237C) expression directly correlated with impaired IL-8 responsiveness of alveolar macrophages to NTHI (p = 0.02), MC (p = 0.008) and SP (p = 0.02) compared with wildtype expression (Fig 2, Table 6).