Significant differences between treatments were tested by analysis of variance (anova) followed by a comparison between treatments performed by Fisher’s least significant difference (LSD) method, with a level of significance of P < 0·05. Pooled PBMCs or CRL-9850 MK-2206 in vitro cells incubated with selected live bacteria for 48 and 72 h yielded cytokine levels as shown in Figs 1a–c and 2a,b. Also shown are three individual donor cytokine profiles (48 or 72 h) as a representative of the 30 donor PBMCs investigated depicting varying cytokine levels detected between donors

(Table 1a–c). A comparison of the 30 individual donor PBMCs with the pooled donor PBMCs, shows significant differences of cytokine levels in line with previous results [23]. Even though some cytokines were not detectable from individual donors, substantial and significant production of all investigated cytokines were recorded from pooled PBMC in response to LAB. All strains of bacteria had the capacity to induce pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokine production from the cell line and PBMCs; however, the magnitude of production of each cytokine varied depending on the strain, as reported Daporinad nmr similarly by Wu et al. [24]. Generally, buffy coat-sourced PBMC produced significantly higher (P < 0·05) concentrations (100–8800 pg/ml) of cytokines compared to cord blood-derived PBMCs or CRL-9850 cells. In addition, cytokine production in the buffy coat PBMC was detectable from

early culture (6 h, data not shown) and maintained up to 72 h, while cord blood PBMC and CRL 9580 cells showed a later appearance of cytokines in culture (48–72 h, Fig. 2a,b), the delayed response due probably to a lack of established adaptive immune responses in cord blood [25]. While proinflammatory cytokines were produced significantly in the supernatants for all treatments, anti-inflammatory cytokines such as TGF-β, IL-6 and IL-10 were also detected. In the majority of cord blood samples, T cell responses show an IL-10 or Th2-like pattern of cytokine production (Fig. 2a) [25,26]. Previous studies have suggested that IL-10 may play a major

role in influencing the activity of the placental trophoblast, which has been proposed as a key cell type in regulating fetal Bumetanide immunoprotection [27,28]. The survival of bacteria subjected to conditions mimicking those in the GIT (e.g. low pH, exposure to enzymes and bile) was measured and compared to untreated bacteria growth. No significant differences were observed between the two sets of results, indicating that the bacteria are able to withstand the harsh physiological conditions (Table 2) [17,29]. Proinflammatory cytokine production was measured following co-cultured of GIT-simulated bacteria with the different cells as above. In general, results showed cytokine production similar to that observed from live bacteria (Fig. 1a,b). Of all the bacterial strains assessed, St1275 induced the highest production of IL-12 from buffy coat PBMC (Fig. 1b).