Figure 1. Infection with N. gonorrhoeae induces production of chemotactic and inflammatory cytokines from primary monocytes and monocyte derived cell lines.

A) THP-1 cells at 1×10⁶ cell/ml were incubated with N. gonorrhoeae at the indicated MOI as noted in the experimental methods. At 4 hours, extracellular bacteria were killed by addition of gentamicin. Supernatants were collected and cytokine production quantitated using multiplexed cytokine bead arrays. Each of two bars at each dose of infection represents an independent experiment. B) Primary monocytes were isolated from human blood as described in the Materials and Methods. The cells were seeded in plates at a density of 1.0 ×10⁶ cells/ ml and were infected with gonococcus at an MOI of 0.2. The samples were processed and cytokines measured as described in A. The * indicates cytokine levels below 1 pg/ml and “H” indicates cytokine levels were greater than the highest standard measured, 150,000 pg/ml.