Figure 1

Bacterial supernatants of Neisseria meningitidis induced MARCO expression in primary rat astrocytes and meningeal cells. Astrocytes (A and B), microglia (C and D) and meningeal cells (E and F) were incubated with bacterial supernatants of Gram-positive bacteria Streptococcus pneumoniae (SP) or Gram-negative bacteria Neisseria meningitidis (NM) for 0, 6, 12 and 24 h. FPRL1 or MARCO mRNA expression was analyzed using SYBR green real-time RT-PCR and results were compared to the untreated sample. GAPDH (housekeeping gene) was used as an internal control. The data were assessed from three independent experiments in triplicate. An asterisk indicates a significant difference (**, p < 0.001; *, p < 0.05) compared to control as determined by ANOVA followed by the Bonferroni test.