Fig. 1.

Treatment with Giardia duodenalis extracellular vesicles (GEVs) enhanced proinflammatory cytokine transcription and secretion from mouse macrophages. Cells were inoculated with 25 μg/ml GEVs, 1.5 × 10⁶ G. duodenalis/ml, or GEVs + G. duodenalis. a–c Real-time quantitative PCR analysis of the transcription levels of the proinflammatory cytokines interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-6 and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) in infected cells collected at 12 h. d–f Measurement of the secretion levels of proinflammatory cytokines in the supernatants collected 18 h after inoculation, by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The results are shown as the mean ± standard error of the mean (SEM) of triplicate experiments. Asterisks indicate significance level of difference vs the phosphate buffered saline control: *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001. Hashtag symbols indicate significance level of difference vs G. duodenalis-treated control: ^#p < 0.05, ^##p < 0.01