Fig. 1.

C. difficile-infected mice gavaged with MET-1 have similar weight loss but decreased inflammatory cytokine release compared to mice gavaged with vehicle control in an antibiotic-mediated C. difficile colitis model. C57BL/6 mice were treated with a mixture of broad-spectrum antibiotics and then orally administered MET-1 or saline, followed by 10⁵ C. difficile strain 027 or saline 24 h later, as described in “Methods”. a Mice were weighed every 24 h, and the percent change in body weight is shown. Saline+ C. diff mice and MET-1+ C. diff mice demonstrated similar weight loss by 48 h, and the experiment was terminated at 52 h once saline+ C. diff mice lost 10 % weight. Data were analyzed by two-way ANOVA with Tukey correction, n = 3 for panel (a) and n = 4 for panel (b) for each group (*p <0.05). b Serum cytokine levels were significantly reduced in C. difficile-infected mice pretreated with MET-1 compared to infected mice pretreated with vehicle control (VC + C. difficile). Serum cytokine levels were measured using a Bio-Plex Pro mouse cytokine magnetic bead kit. There were no significant differences in cytokine concentrations between uninfected mice pretreated with MET-1 or vehicle control (data not shown). Data were analyzed by t-Student test with Mann-Whitney correction, n = 3 for panel A and n = 4 for panel B for each group (*p <0.05)