05) vs. media only (Fig. 1d). HKRB51

induced nonsignificantly higher DC–CD86 expression than HK2308 at both doses, respectively. By contrast, at both 1 : 10 (not shown) and 1 : 100, both live Brucella strains (RB51 and 2308) induced a significantly (P≤0.05) higher CD86 expression on infected DCs compared with media. In addition, live strain RB51-induced CD86 expression was significantly higher (P≤0.05) than both HK and IR rough and smooth strain-induced CD86 levels at the respective MOIs (Fig. 1d). At MOI 1 : 10, the live strain 2308-induced CD86 level was significantly higher (P≤0.05) than the HK2308-induced levels at MOI 1 : 10 equivalent, and at MOI 1 : 100, the live strain 2308-induced CD86 level was significantly higher (P≤0.05) than both HK and IR rough and smooth strain-induced CD86 levels with MOI 1 : 100 equivalent. Figure 1e illustrates the CD40/CD86 coexpression analyses on immature BMDCs buy Metformin treated BMN 673 solubility dmso with HK and live Brucella strains, which were similar to CD86 expression. HKRB51 induced a higher nonsignificant mean CD40/CD86 coexpression than HK2308 at both 1 : 10 (not shown) and 1 : 100. At 1 : 100, HKRB51 induced significantly higher levels

of CD40/CD86 (P≤0.05) compared with media. By comparison, strain IRRB51 induced greater DC–CD86 and CD40/CD86 expression than media at a dose of 1 : 100 (P≤0.05). However, strain IRRB51- and strain HKRB51-stimulated BMDCs were not significantly different from each other at either doses. Strain IRRB51 had lower mean values, but not statistically significant, of each costimulatory molecule expression and followed the same pattern of

CD40, CD86 and CD40/86 expression as HKRB51-stimulated DCs (Fig. 1c–e). TNF-α is an inflammatory cytokine that plays an important role in the defense against intracellular pathogens and is essential for DC maturation. IL-12 production by DCs is critical for a protective CD4 Th1 type immune response and the clearance of intracellular bacteria (Huang et al., 2001). To determine DC function based on cytokine secretion, TNF-α, IL-12p70 and IL-4 secretions from antigen-treated BMDC culture supernatants were Venetoclax analyzed using indirect ELISA. Neither HK nor IR rough strain RB51 produced significant amounts of TNF-α or IL-12 at both doses compared with media control (Fig. 2a and b). Only live strain RB51 at an MOI 1 : 100 induced BMDCs to secrete a significantly higher amount of both TNF-α and IL-12 (P≤0.05). Irrespective of the viability or the dose, strain 2308 did not induce significant levels of TNF-α or IL-12 from infected BMDCs (Fig. 2a and b). None of the strains induced detectable levels of IL-4 cytokine (data not shown). We have recently submitted another manuscript (Surendran et al., 2010) in which we determined that vaccine strain RB51 upregulated DC activation and function using our in vitro BMDC model.