Sex Hormones Selectively Impact the Endocervical Mucosal Microenvironment: Implications for HIV Transmission
Figure 6
Sex hormones influence the levels of soluble factors in vaginal swabs.
The concentration of various cytokines and chemokines was measure in clarified vaginal swabs of animals treated with DMPA-treated, E2-treated or untreated control by Luminex technology. Because of technical errors generated by the Luminex machine, we could not measure: IL6 in 2 E2-treated animals; MIF in 2 E2 treated and 1 untreated animals; CXCL11 in 1 E2- and 1 untreated animals; IL17 in 1 untreated animal, CCL22 and IFNγ in 1 E2 animal. Bars represent mean±SEM. p<0.05 is considered significant and all the results with p<0.125 are also shown to indicate a tendency toward a significant difference.