Fig. 2. P. lacrimalis and L. parvula elicits 3-D cervical cell pro-inflammatory responses while P. uenonis dampens the chemotactic response, possibly to evade immune clearance.

Heatmaps displaying relative concentrations of 3-D human cervical cell secretion profiles of cytokines, chemokines, growth factors, cancer biomarkers, and matrix metalloproteinases. Hierarchical clustering of immunoproteomic targets (rows) and treatments (columns) were calculated using Euclidean distance measures and average linkage clustering algorithms. The data were log-transformed and autoscaled prior to clustering. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001; ****p < 0.0001; unpaired two-tailed Student’s t-test (infection vs. mock-infected controls). All bacteria were processed in PBS and adjusted to an optical density at 600 nm (OD₆₀₀) of 0.5. Human 3-D cervical cells were infected with bacterial suspensions (20 μl per 1 × 10⁵ epithelial cells) for 24 h under anaerobic conditions. A minimum of n = 3 independent replicates were performed and measured for each condition with two technical replicates measured within each condition. Cell culture supernatants were used for Bio-Plex analysis.