Differentiated 3T3-L1 adipocytes (columns 1 and 2) or isolated murine splenocytes (columns 3 and 4) were cultured alone or together with either direct contact (columns 7 and 8) or no contact (cells separated by a 0.4 µm transwell filter system; columns 5 and 6). Cells were additionally incubated in the absence (-) (columns 1, 3, 5 and 7) or presence (+) (columns 2, 4, 6 and 8) of LPS (1 µg/mL) for 24 h. Secreted cytokines, TNFα (A), IL-6 (B) and MCP-1 (C), were quantified by capture ELISA. All experimental points were measured in triplicate for calculation of means and standard deviations. Comparison between individual cultures, co-cultures with no contact and co-cultures with direct cell-cell contact were calculated using ANOVA and followed by the post-hoc Bonferroni test. A significant effect was accepted when p<0.05.