Figure 1.

Time kinetics of tumour necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and interleukin-12 p40 (IL-12p40) expression in response to lipopolysaccharide (LPS) ± n-butyrate. Freshly isolated monocytes were stimulated with LPS (100 ng/ml) ± n-butyrate (1 mm) for 2·5 and 6 hr. Expression profiles were analysed using the ΔΔCT method for relative quantification. Expression levels of TNF-α and IL-12p40 mRNAs were normalized to the average of housekeeping genes and shown relative to unstimulated (unst) cells in the absence of n-butyrate. Results are depicted as mean ± SD values found in monocytes from the donor shown in Fig. 2. The same experiments were performed for another independent donor and showed similar results (data not shown).