Fig. 2.

Antimicrobial peptide gene expression in mice following inoculation with H99γ compared with H99. BALB/c mice were intranasally inoculated with 1×10⁴ c.f.u. of C. neoformans strain H99γ or H99 in 50 µl sterile PBS. At days 1, 3, 5 and 7 post-inoculation, mice were killed and pulmonary RNA was isolated from whole lung tissues and homogenized in Trizol reagent. cDNA was prepared from total RNA and real-time PCR was conducted to measure S100A8, S100A9, lipocalin-2 (LCN-2) and SAA3 expression. Bars represent the fold change in gene expression in pulmonary tissues from H99γ-infected mice compared with tissues from H99-infected mice. Data shown are cumulative of three independent experiments utilizing individual tissues from four mice per group per time point per experiment and are reported as means±sem (*P<0.05).