Figure 1.
Immunomodulatory effects of probiotics on IL-8 and hBD-2 mRNA expression in Pseudomonas aeruginosa–infected SW480 cells. SW480 cells were infected or not with P. aeruginosa PAO1 under the treatment of an effective concentration (109 CFU/ml) of LGG or BL. Total RNA samples were extracted after the infection and analysed using real-time quantitative RT-PCR to estimate the number of IL-8 (a) and hBD-2 (b) transcripts. The amount of mRNA produced is shown as the fold increase over non-infected control cells. GAPDH was used as an internal control. mRNA expression levels are shown as the mean ± SEM of duplicate wells from at least three separate experiments (*P < 0.05 compared to P. aeruginosa infection only). hBD-2: human beta-defensin 2; LGG: Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG; BL: Bifidobacterium longum.