IVIg treatment induces a profound increase in the circulating levels of IL-11 in mice.

<p><b><i>A, B,</i></b> Individual C57BL6/J mice were administered IVIg (2.0 g/kg) or PBS. <b><i>A</i></b>, Serum was collected for IL-11 protein measurement using ELISA at 0, 3, 6, 12, 18 and 24 hours post-injection. *indicates a significant difference (*p<0.05) from time zero as determined using a one-way ANOVA and a Tukey post-hoc test. <b><i>B</i></b>, Tissues (spleen, liver, bone marrow, and pooled axillary and inguinal lymph nodes) were collected from mice at 6 h post-injection, total RNA was isolated and was reverse-transcribed to cDNA, and IL-11 mRNAs were measured in samples using real-time qRT-PCR. Shown is the abundance of IL-11 mRNAs (normalized to beta-actin) and expressed as fold-change relative to the comparator sample (bone marrow sample from PBS-treated mouse). *indicates a difference from PBS-injected group as determined using a Student’s t-test assuming equal variances (two-tailed, *p<0.05). <b><i>A & B</i></b> show means + SEM of values obtained from individual mice. <b><i>C</i></b>, EAE was induced in C57BL/6J mice with MOG_35–55/CFA and pertussis toxin. Mice were injected with IVIg or HSA daily (1 g/kg, i.p.). Shown are the IL-11 levels (pg/ml) in the sera of mice at 6 h post-injection on the day of onset (0), and at 10, 17, and day 45 post-immunization with MOG_35–55 and CFA. Values are means ± SEM of readings from 2–5 individual mice/group/time point. *indicates a significant difference (p<0.05) from the HSA-injected, genotype-matched counterpart. <b><i>D</i></b>, shows a heat map of serum cytokine/chemokine levels taken at 6 h post IVIg or PBS injection with N = 8 mice/group. Each data box in the heat map represents a reading from an individual mouse.