Figure 5.

Surface modifications of silica nanoparticles diminish expression of certain inflammatory genes in non-sensitized mice (NS) mice in vivo. Representative gene regulations of (a) cytokines or (b) chemokines in mouse lungs 5 days after intratracheal instillation of 50 μg SiO₂ plain (red), SiO₂-PEG (green), SiO₂-P (gray) or SiO₂-NH₂ blue) or supernatant control (CTL) and ovalbumin challenge. Mean ± standard deviation were evaluated in lung by real-time PCR (n = 4/group). One-way Anova † p < 0.05; †† p ≤ 0.01; ††† p ≤ 0.01 vs. CTL p ≤ 0.001; * p < 0.05; ** p ≤ 0.01; *** p ≤ 0.001 vs. SiO₂ plain. # p < 0.05; ## p ≤ 0.01; ### p ≤ 0.001 vs. SiO₂-PEG (n = 4). Part of the data, i.e., those relative to the cytokine TNF-α and to the chemokines MCP-1, MIP-1α, TARC and MDC have already been shown in a different form in [21].