Fig. 5.

Macrophage activation on PEG hydrogels induced by the DAMP-mimetic, Poly(I:C), is moderately mediated by MyD88. A) Schematic depicting poly(I:C)-induced signaling for NF-κB via MyD88-independent up-regulation of pro-inflammatory cytokines. Experimental setup is similar to Fig. 1A, but with the addition of poly(I:C). B) mRNA production of the proinflammatory cytokines Tnfa, Il6, and Il1b relative to the housekeeping gene Rpl32 for WT (black bars) and MyD88_−/− (gray bars) macrophages in response to stimulation with poly(I:C). The unstimulated condition is the same data in Fig. 1D,C) Hydrogel-induced fold change in mRNA production for each cytokine is represented by relative mRNA production on the hydrogel condition normalized to that on the reference substrate for WT (black bars) and MyD88_−/− (gray bars) macrophages. For both B&C panels, mRNA expression was analyzed 4 h post-seeding. D) Pro-inflammatory cytokine concentrations in the culture medium for WT (black bars) and MyD88_−/− (gray bars) macrophages with LPS stimulation after 24 h. All data are presented as mean with standard deviation as error bars (n=4) with P-values shown for pairwise comparisons (* p<0.05; ** p<0.01; *** p<0.001).