Figure 4.

Pam3CSK4 induces an increase in BAFF mRNA levels. (A) DCs were stimulated with 10 μg/ml of Pam3CSK4 for 0–72 h, or (B) with Pam3CSK4 at 0-10 μg/ml for 72 h. Total RNA was isolated and cDNA was synthesized as described in the Materials and Methods. The cDNA was subjected to RT-PCR to determine expression levels of BAFF mRNA. Upper, β-actin–normalized BAFF mRNA expression is presented as the percentage change ± standard deviation of three separate experiments against the group showing the highest ratio [72 h and 10 μg/ml treatment group in (A) and (B), respectively], set as 100% by densitometric analysis. Lower, a representative BAFF mRNA expression determined by RT-PCR. Asterisk (*) indicates statistical significance at p < 0.05 between the non-treatment and treatment groups.