Fig. 3
Butyrate treatment decreases pathogen invasion in mice which was reversed upon chol-lipo treatment. A group of adult C57BL/6 mice were fed with chow diet and 150 mM sodium butyrate in drinking water for 30 days. On 28th day of butyrate treatment, half of the animals were selected randomly and was injected liposome-cholesterol (200 µL of liposomal suspension) through intracardiac route (chol-lipo mice). All the animals were infected with 108 cfu/mice of Shigella flexneri on 30th day intraperitoneally. On day 2 of post infection the animals were sacrificed and feaces and colon tissue were collected for analysis. The bacterial load was determined by plating diluted fecal samples on XLD plates. The bacterial load is determined as cfu/ gm feaces A. The mucin 2 expression was measured by qPCR B. The microscopic view of histological sections of the colon of representative animal per group C, number of neutrophils in high power field (100X) in the colon section of infected-mice, butyrate-mice and chol-lipo-mice D, Panel1, 10X magnification, Panel2, 100X magnification. The mRNA expression of the cytokines E and antimicrobial gene cathelicidin F from colon tissue was measured by qPCR. N = 3, 5 animals were taken per group, the data is represented as Mean ± SEM. * represents p < 0.05, ** represents p < 0.01, *** represents p < 0.001