FIG. 8.

Cytokine gene expression during C. rodentium infection: quantitative RT-PCR analysis of TNF-α and IL-17 expression in distal colons taken from C57BL/6 and Rag1 KO at day 10 following C. rodentium infection. Induction of TNF-α was moderately increased in both strains at day 10 p.i.; the levels in C57BL/6 mice were increased, but the difference was not significant (P = 0727). However, IL-17 gene expression was significantly increased in infected C57BL/6 mice compared to the minimal IL-17 expression observed in infected Rag1 KO mice. All samples were normalized to β-actin. The bars indicate the means for eight C57BL/6 mice and four Rag1 KO mice from three independent infections. The error bars indicate the standard errors of the means. Asterisk, P < 0.05, as determined by the Mann-Whitney t test.