Strain Reynolds induces more proinflammatory, but less anti-inflammatory mediator earlier than RN6390. Brain abscess homogenates from S. aureus strain RN6390- or Reynolds-infected animals (n=4 to 6 per group for each time point), as well as sterile bead injected mice (n=2 per group for each time point) were prepared at the indicated time points and analyzed for TNF-α (A), CXCL2 (B), IL-10 (C), and IL-12p40 (D) protein expression by ELISA. Abscess-associated cytokine levels were normalized to the amount of total protein recovered to correct for differences in tissue sampling size and reported as the mean values of cytokine (picograms) per milligram of protein. The results are the mean (±SEM) of 3 independent experiments. Significant differences between S. aureus strain RN6390- and Reynolds-infected mice are denoted with asterisks (*, p<0.05), while the pound sign represents the differences in the same group among different time points (#, p<0.05).