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. 2012 Jun 29;7(6):e40044. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0040044

Figure 2. Cytokine expression during the early phase of fracture repair.

Figure 2

(A) WT and Rag1−/− mice serums drawn 2 days post-fracture show elevated IL-6 and G-CSF levels compared to unfractured baseline mice. However, WT mice were found to have twice the increase in cytokine levels of IL-6 and G-CSF compared to Rag1−/− mice during this early phase of fracture healing (p<0.05). (B) Fracture callus RNA expression analysis of cytokine levels at a similar early time point post fracture, shows a greater than 2 fold up-regulation of pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-6, IL-17F and IL-23 in WT mice compared to Rag1−/− and baseline mice (p<0.05). Conversely, expression of anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10 is up-regulated in Rag1−/− and TGFβ is down-regulated in WT mice. (C) Immunohistochemistry analysis during the early phase of fracture healing at 3 days post fracture confirmed IL-17F positive staining (black arrows) in WT mice similar to the distribution of CD3 staining shown previously with no positive IL-17F staining in Rag1−/− mice (200X).