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. 2017 Oct 10;7:439. doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2017.00439

Figure 1.

Figure 1

Chronic exposure of THP-1 cells to sub-pathological levels of cholesterol impaired them from clearing intracellular Mycobacteria. (A) Schematic representation of the cell culture based model used in the study (B) Measurement of the clearance of intracellular pathogenic mycobacteria H37Rv by CFU counts in untreated and treated cells. (C) Oil Red O staining of intracellular lipid bodies in untreated and treated cells 12 h post cholesterol (80 μM) treatment before infection. The bright field images for each category are representative of at the least five fields (scale bar 10 μm). (D) Lipid bodies as visualized in (C) were quantified on microtiter plate spectroscopically after Oil Red O staining. (E) TNF-α released by untreated and cholesterol treated, with (MOI 20) or without H37Rv infection as measured by ELISA. Clearance of (F) non-tuberculous mycobacteria M. avium or (G) attenuated mycobacteria M. bovis BCG by untreated or treated THP-1 cells as evaluated by CFU. Each experiment was carried out at the least three times. Statistical analyses were performed as mentioned in methods. Error bars represent ± SD. *P ≤ 0.05; **P < 0.005.