The First Trimester Gravid Serum Regulates Procalcitonin Expression in Human Macrophages Skewing Their Phenotype In Vitro
Figure 3
Human macrophages conditioned for 24 hours with gravid serum (GS) downregulate the expression of IL-1β and upregulate IL-10. Increased expression of CD206 was observed at gene and protein level. (a) mRNA expression levels of IL-1β, IL-10, and CD206 were measured by qPCR and normalized to those of the human housekeeping gene 18S. Results were expressed as AUs, in which 1 AU represents the value obtained with macrophages cultured in NHS used as a positive control. The amount of CD206 positive macrophages was evaluated by counting labeled cells using ImageJ (NIH, United States), considering a percentage of positive cells in at least 5 different fields. Bars represent the mean ± S.E.M. of at least 3 independent experiments. and (Mann-Whitney test). (b) Immunofluorescence reveals the upregulation of the expression of CD206 protein (red) in human macrophages cultured for 24 hours in presence of GS. DAPI nuclear staining is shown in blue. Images were acquired with Leica DM3000 microscope. Original magnification 20x.
