Fig. 3.

Effect of soluble Saccharomyces cerevisiae-derived β-1,3/1,6-glucan (SBG) prophylaxis on indicators of kidney injury and renal dysfunction in the endotoxic rat. Rats were pretreated with SBG or placebo and underwent surgery as described. At the experimental end-point, 6 h after intravenous infusion of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) (SBGpo n = 8, SBGsc n = 8 and placebo n = 8) or vehicle (sham n = 20), plasma samples were collected and examined for levels of creatinine (a) and urea (b) by automated enzymatic photometric assays. No statistically significant differences were observed between the sham animals, regardless of SBG or placebo pretreatment (SBGpo n = 5, SBGsc n = 5 and placebo n = 10) (data not shown), thus the data were combined to one sham group. In the placebo group oral and subcutaneous pretreatment is indicated by open (○) and closed circles (•), respectively. Each data point represents one animal, bars represent median values. *P < 0·05, ***P < 0·001 as determined by analysis of variance with Bonferroni's multiple comparison test.