Skewed cytokine responses in Siglec-E KO mice challenged in a GBS intranasal pneumonia model.

<p>Mice were infected intranasally with 5×10⁷ CFU WT GBS and cytokine levels in cell-free BAL fluid or lung homogenates collected 6 h post infection. (A) Bacterial load in lung tissue was calculated by dilution plating for CFU enumeration. (B) Cells from BAL were counted and stained with mAb to F4/80 and Gr-1 to quantitate infiltrating cell populations. IL-1β (C) and IL-6 (D) in the BAL and IL-10 in lung homogenates (E) were examined by ELISA analysis. Data shown are means ± SEM and each circle denotes 1 mouse (n = 8 for WT and n = 7 for mSiglec-E KO mice). The difference between different groups was calculated by Mann-Whitney test.