Figure 2.

Encapsulation of imiquimod in Ac-DEX microparticles results in significantly higher inflammatory cytokine production in vitro. (A&B) 5×10⁶ cells/mL MH-S and RAW 264.7 macrophages (N=3) were stimulated for 6 hours with medium, free imiquimod, encapsulated imiquimod, or empty particles, and prepared individually for real-time PCR analysis for IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α expression. Gene expression (mean ± SEM) is expressed as the fold increase over medium controls after normalization to HPRT. In separate experiments 1×10⁶ cells/mL RAW 264.7 and MH-S (N=3) were stimulated with medium, free imiquimod, encapsulated imiquimod, or empty particles. After 24 hours the supernatants were removed and assayed for protein concentration of IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α via Luminex. Graphs are representative of at least two individual experiments. *=p value <0.05, **=p value <0.01, ***=p value <0.001