Estrogen treatment decreases disease severity and the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines.

<p>(A) Representative histologic images of ceca from ovariectomized A/J mice sacrificed 90 days after <i>Helicobacter hepaticus</i> inoculation and implantation with a subcutaneous pellet containing either (top) 17β-estradiol (1.5 mg/pellet) or (bottom) placebo. (B) Cecal lesion scores of placebo (circles) and estradiol (squares) treated mice (n = 8, 8 respectively). Each point represents the lesion score for an individual mouse. Lesion score data analyzed with an exact Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test; horizontal lines represent medians. (C) Real-time quantitative PCR measurements of cecal cytokine and chemokine mRNA expression levels in mice receiving placebo (circle) or estrogen (square) treatment (n = 8). mRNA expression was normalized to the expression of the housekeeping gene HPRT. All mRNA expression data with an exact Wilcoxon Rank Sum Test; each point represents the expression level for an individual mouse and horizontal lines represent medians. For all data analysis p≤0.05 considered significant and indicated by horizontal capped bars.