Figure 3.

Inflammatory potential of three B. burgdorferi RST genotypes in PBMC cultures. PBMCs from three healthy donors were stimulated with 30 B. burgdorferi isolates, 10 of each RST strain, at a multiplicity of infection of 25 for 24 hours (A) or 5 days (B). Protein expression of six chemokines and six cytokines in culture supernatants was assessed simultaneously in one complete experiment using multiplex assays. All 30 isolates were tested with PBMCs from each of the three healthy donors. The results from all three donors were averaged for comparison of the three RST groups. The box represents 25^th to 75^th percentiles; lines outside the box, 5^th to 95^th percentiles; and horizontal line in the box, median. For the comparison of RST1 with RST2 or RST3, *P ≤ 0.05 and **P ≤ 0.01. There were no significant differences between RST2 and RST3 strains.