Figure 5

Interleukin-12 gene expression. The intensity of gene expression for both components of the IL-12 heterodimer was measured by ribonuclease protection assay in lung tissue samples from 3 mice from each strain and exposure condition. The results for C57Bl/6 wild-type mice are shown in the left panel and results for the IL-12 KO mice are shown in the right panel. The analysis for the IL-12 p35 subunit is shown in the upper panels and for the p40 subunit in the lower panels. The significance of the differences among the groups is presented in the text. The IL-12 p40 subunit mRNA was virtually undetectable in the IL-12 KO mice because this is the gene that has been modified to create the knock-out strain.