Fig. 2.

Effect of Lactobacillus casei Shirota (LcS) on production of cytokines by peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) in the presence or absence of lipopolysaccharide (LPS). PBMCs were cultured with live LcS at 10⁶ colony-forming units (CFU)/ml for 24 h in the presence or absence LPS (1 µg/ml). Non-stimulated cultures were shown as negative control. Each bar represents the mean of 6 to 12 blood donors and the error bars represent standard deviation [49]. *P < 0·05, **P < 0·01,***P < 0·001 compared with non-stimulated cultures.