A significant difference find more was considered to exist when the P-value was <0.05. TNFα, IL-12 and IL-10 were evaluated because of the important role they play in inflammation and cancer therapy. Tanigawa et al. (2000) showed that draining lymph node cells treated with TNFα induced greater antitumor responses in tumor-bearing mice when administered with anti-IL-10 therapy,

thus highlighting the inter-relationship of these cytokines. Lactobacilli were placed in coculture with splenocytes for 6, 24, 48 and 72 h. C57BL/6 mice are regarded as more likely to induce Th1 responses, while BALB/c mice are more Th2 like. Therefore, we also compared the responses induced by the lactobacilli using splenocytes from these two www.selleckchem.com/products/ipilimumab.html mouse strains. In splenocytes isolated from C57BL/6, all three species of lactobacilli tested induced a marked increase in TNFα compared with control (L. bulgaricus>L. rhamnosus>L. casei) (P<0.001) (Fig. 1a). Both L. bulgaricus and L. rhamnosus induced more IL-10 secretion (P<0.05) compared with control splenocytes with L. bulgaricus>L. rhamnosus (Fig. 1c). However, only L. bulgaricus induced a significant increase in IL-12p40 production (P<0.01) (Fig. 1e) while L. casei suppressed IL-12p40 secretion. Neither IL-4 nor IFNγ was detected. When the three lactobacilli strains were incubated with BALB/c splenocytes, only L. bulgaricus induced the significant

production of all three cytokines (P<0.001) Tenofovir concentration and L. rhamnosus and L. casei suppressed IL-12p40 production (P<0.05) (Fig. 1b, d and f). Previous studies have also reported the differential proinflammatory

activity of Lactobacillus strains (Tejada-Simon & Pestka, 1999; Maassen et al., 2000). Lactic acid bacteria possess molecules such as lectins or teichoic acids, which can participate in bacterial adhesion (de Ambrosini et al., 1996), and a variation in these lipoteichoic acids results in significant differences in proinflammatory cytokine production (Grangette et al., 2005). A differential response in cytokine production was observed in C57BL/6 and BALB/c splenocytes exposed to L. rhamnosus and L. casei strains but not L. bulgaricus. This differential response is unlikely to be due to differences in receptor expression, but could indicate qualitative differences in the recognition of Lactobacillus strains probably due to difference in their cell wall components. Lyophilization is important for the long-term storage and stability of bacterial preparations for both clinical therapy and the food industry. Matsuguchi et al. (2003) reported that the cell wall fraction of L. casei induced less TNFα production compared with the protoplast fraction. The stress of lyophilization may cause bacterial membrane disruption; may change the architecture of the cell wall; may affect the integrity of membrane proteins as well as cause the release of cytoplasmic components.