Figure 1.

LCN2 suppression of UPEC infections in bladder cells in a high-glucose environment. SV-HUC-1 cells were first pretreated with 15 mM glucose, followed by treatments with different concentrations of LCN2 (1, 5, and 25 μg/mL) for 24 h and infection with pGFP-UPEC (MOI of 1:100) for 4 h, as described in the text. The definitions of the letters on the X axis: U, UPEC infection alone; G, with 15 mM glucose pretreatment alone. UPEC infections in bladder cells were examined by plating cells on NB agar (A) and were determined using ImageJ software (B). Colony-forming units/mL (CFUs/mL) were acquired after plating out lysed solutions of infected cells. The picture shown is representative of a typical result. The data are expressed as the means $\pm$ SDs of three independent experiments. An analysis of variance was used to evaluate differences between various treatment groups and controls. Statistical differences between groups were determined using the Mann–Whitney U Student’s t-test. Statistical significance was set at p < 0.05. *** p < 0.001, **** p < 0.0001 compared to the positive control groups. #### p < 0.0001 for comparisons between two groups.