Fig. 3.

Temporal changes in cytokine expression of BALF in the bleomycin model of lung injury. Cytokine expression levels on days 2, 4, 6, and 12 were assayed in BALF by use of ELISA. IL-6 (A), TNF-α (B), CCL2/MCP-1 (C), and CXCL1/KC (D) expression levels were the highest on day 2 and were significantly higher than those in uninjured mice. Expression levels of all the cytokines tested returned to close to uninjured levels by days 6 and 12. Significant differences in cytokine levels between groups on the individual days tested are indicated. Values are represented as arithmetic means ± SE (n = 3 mice per group). P values were calculated by 1-way ANOVA with a post hoc Bonferroni's multiple comparison analysis performed between all the groups. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, and ***P < 0.001.