Those epithelial cells derived from patients with both HIV and COPD contained a much lower amount of E-cadherin as detected by immunoblotting (Fig 2C). To determine if HIV alone altered E-cadherin status, stored epithelial cell pellets from 7 HIV negative patients and 7 HIV positive patients (neither group had patients diagnosed with COPD) were processed to measure relative E-cadherin levels. This evidence concerns the gene CDH1 and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.