Contact between uroepithelial cells and monocytes drives synergistic and antagonistic biomarker production in UPEC-infected dual co-cultures.

<p>(A) IL-10 production was synergistic in co-cultures that showed significant increases mediated by contact between uroepithelial cells and monocytes (compare Ic-Mon/Ep with Ni-Mon/Ep, p ≤ 0.0139). In contrast, the production of IL-6 (B), GM-CSF (C) and PDGF-BB (D) in insert-containing co-cultures was significantly higher than non-insert co-cultures (compare Ic-Mon/Ep with Ni-Mon/Ep), revealing antagonistic effects mediated by contact between monocytes and uroepithelial cells. Statistical comparisons are: ⁺ control vs corresponding infected; ^# insert-containing infected co-culture vs corresponding infected monoculture; ^┴ insert-containing infected co-culture vs no insert infected co-culture, notations are p < 0.05; Mann–Whitney U-test. (Ic-Ctrl = insert-containing dual co-culture uninfected, Ic-Ep = insert-containing uroepithelial infected, Ic-Mon = insert-containing monocyte infected, Ic-Mon/Ep = insert-containing monocyte and uroepithelial infected, Ni-Ctrl = no insert co-culture uninfected, Ni-Mon/Ep = no insert monocyte and uroepithelial infected, Mon-Ctrl = monocyte uninfected, Mon = monocyte infected, Ep-Ctrl = uroepithelial uninfected, Ep = uroepithelial infected).