Fig. 3

HK-C60 activates cytokine production in DCs via TLR-MyD88 pathway. (A) Gene expression profile in PP-derived DCs. The WT mice received saline or HK-C60 i.g. administration for 14 days following the protocol presented in Fig. 1A (n = 5 in each). The CD11c⁺ DCs were isolated from small intestinal PP and total RNA was subjected to real-time PCR investigating TLR and MyD88 mRNA expressions. The mRNA expression was quantified by 2^-∆∆Ct method. (B-C) In vitro BMDC stimulation and cytokine production assay. The BMDCs were prepared from WT or MyD88-KO mice (n = 5 in each). The BMDCs were cultured with vehicle, LPS (1 μg/mL) or HK-C60 (5.0 × 10⁸ CFU/mL) at 37 °C for 24 h. The concentration of IL-6 (B) and IL-10 (C) in the conditioned medium were measured by ELISA, respectively. The data are shown as mean ± SEM of five samples from two independent experiments. Student t-test or one-way ANOVA was used to analyze the data for significant differences. Values of *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01 and ***p < 0.001 were regarded as significant. ns: not significant.