Monocytes from PE patients exhibit an amplified response to TLR ligands.

<p>Monocytes from non-pregnant (Non-P), normal pregnant (NP), and pre-eclampsia (PE) patients were isolated, seeded onto tissue culture plates, then treated with 100 ng/mL LPS or 5 µg/mL peptidoglycan (PDG) for 24 hours. Conditioned medium was collected after this time and analyzed by cytometric bead array to measure cytokine levels. <b><i>left panels:</i></b> Basal levels of cytokine production by monocytes. <b><i>right panels</i></b><i>:</i> Graphic representation of the response of monocytes to LPS and PDG. Fold change was calculated by dividing MFI values over untreated control MFI values and illustrated as mean ± SEM. Comparisons were made between NP and PE fold changes. Statistical significance was determined by Mann-Whitney <i>U</i> test (n≥5). ^†<i>p</i><0.05, ^††<i>p</i><0.01 as compared with NP.