Figure 5.

Effect of TLR agonist priming and serum concentration in culture on antimicrobial peptide secretion. Equine MSCs were plated on 75-cm² plates for 72 h in different serum sources (FBS or autologous or allogeneic equine serum) and then trypsinized and stimulated with pIC (10 μg/mL, 2 h, 2 × 10⁶ cells/mL) and plated for 24 h in DMEM media supplemented with varying concentrations (10 or 1%) of different serum sources (FBS or autologous or allogeneic equine serum) on 24-well plates at 100,000 cells/well. Conditioned medium was collected after 24 h in culture and assessed for quantitative cathelicidin/LL-37 antimicrobial peptide production via ELISA. In 1% serum culture following pIC activation, LL37 production was significantly higher from MSCs in FBS cultured media compared to autologous or allogeneic equine serum. Bars are mean and standard deviation of three biological replicates. ns, non-significant statistical analysis. *Statistical significance assessed at p < 0.05.