Figure 2

Effect of chronic ethanol treatment on poly I:C-induced blood and brain TNFα and IL-1β. As described in the methods, male C57BL/6 mice were treated intragastrically with ethanol (5 g/kg, i.g. daily for 10 days) and 24 hours after the last dose of ethanol treatment injected intraperitoneally with poly I:C (250 μg/kg) plus D-GalN (20 mg/kg). Brains were collected three hours after poly I:C injection for all groups, that is, ethanol alone is 27 hours after the last dose of ethanol. The levels of serum TNFα and IL-1β protein and brain TNFα and IL-1β mRNA and protein were measured by real-time PCR and ELISA. (A) Poly I:C treatment increased serum TNFα protein and brain TNFα mRNA and protein. Ethanol treatment did not alter serum TNFα protein, but increased brain TNFα mRNA and protein. Ethanol exposure potentiated poly I:C-induced serum TNFα protein as well as brain TNFα mRNA and protein. (B) Poly I:C treatment increased serum IL-1β protein and brain IL-1β mRNA and protein. Ethanol alone had no significant effect. Ethanol pretreatment potentiated poly I:C-induced serum IL-1β protein and brain IL-1β gene expression and protein synthesis. The results are the means ± SEM in two independent experiments with seven animals per group. *P <0.05, **P <0.01, compared with the vehicle control group. ^# P <0.05, compared with the corresponding poly I:C treated group.