Fig. 3

Primary murine glia express IL-24 following bacterial challenge. a Astrocytes were uninfected or infected with Neisseria meningitidis (Nm) at MOI of 1 or 10 bacteria to glia for 6 h prior to RNA collection. IL-24 and GAPDH mRNA expression was determined by semi-quantitative RT-PCR, and the average of three separate experiments is shown as mean relative gene expression as determined by densitometric analysis normalized to the expression of the housekeeping gene GAPDH ± SEM. b Isolated primary murine microglia were uninfected or infected with N. meningitidis, Staphylococcus aureus (Sa), or S. pneumoniae (Sp) (MOI of 10:1 bacteria to microglia) for 8 h prior to RNA isolation. C57BL/6J thymus tissue was used as a positive control. Relative IL-24 gene expression was determined by densitometric analysis normalized to GAPDH gene expression and is depicted as the mean of three individual experiments ± SEM. c Astrocytes were uninfected or infected with N. meningitidis for 24 or 48 h prior to immunoblot analysis of cell medium IL-24 protein content. Expression of an irrelevant protein is shown as a loading control (lc), and the relative IL-24 expression was determined by densitometric analysis and normalized to untreated cells. Data is expressed as the mean ± the SEM of three independent experiments. Asterisk indicates a statistical significance compared to unchallenged cells (p < 0.05)