Research Article

Hyaluronan Is Not a Ligand but a Regulator of Toll-Like Receptor Signaling in Mesangial Cells: Role of Extracellular Matrix in Innate Immunity

Figure 2

Evaluation of functional relevant unspecific linking capacity of hyaluronan. It was tested, if HA could link PAM3CysSK4 or LPS to any other than its specific TLR. Therefore HA was incubated with PAM3CysSK4 (TLR2 ligand) on TLR2-deficient cells (a), with LPS as a control. The double incubation could not induce an IL-6 expression. Analogously, HA was incubated together with LPS (TLR4 ligand) on TLR4-deficient cells (b), with PAM3CysSK4 as a control. Also, here, the double incubation did not induce an IL-6 expression. Conclusively, an unspecific linking function of HA could not be detected in this setting. HA[S]: hyaluronan < 1500 Da; HA[L]: hyaluronan 1500 Da–3000 Da; data are means ± SD, ns: not significant, .
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(a)
714081.fig.002b
(b)