<i>Ex-vivo</i> mucosal cytokine responses to <i>C.</i><i>difficile</i> infection.

Macroscopically normal and matched multiple colonic biopsies (30 individuals with mean age of 10.4± SD of 4.7) were infected with C. difficile strains R20291 and 630 (5×108) for 6h. Post-infection IL-8 (A), IL-1β (B), IL-6 (C), IFN-γ (D), IL-17A (E) and IL-22 (F) were quantified by ELISA. Bars represent median levels. *p<0.05, **p<0.01 and ***p<0.001 represent significant difference from uninfected controls and p<0.05 represent significant inter-strain difference. Data was analysed using a Mann–Whitney U test.