MK2 and MK3 regulate LPS-induced inflammatory response of macrophages [360min]

The p38MAPK downstream targets MK 2 and 3 are critical for the regulation of the macrophage response towards bacterial lipopolysaccharid (LPS). The extent these two kinases act cooperatively in regulating LPS-induced inflammatory cytokine expression and their distinct regulatory effects are still unclear. To address this point, whole transcriptome analyses had been performed using bone marrow derived macrophages (BMDM) generated from MK2-/- or MK2/3-/- animals and from wildtype littermates. The BMDM were treated with 100 ng/ml LPS for 360 minutes or with medium as control. Thereafter, total mRNA was isolated and subjected to array analysis using the SurePrint G3 Mouse 8x60K Microarray Kit from Agilent. In total 23 samples from murine bone marrow derived macrophages (BMDM) were analyzed. These samples include 3 different genotypes (wt, MK2-/-, MK2/3-/-) treated with cell culture medium (control) or with 100 ng/ml LPS for 360 minutes. This study involves 4 replicates for each condition, whereas condition MK2-/- BMDM treated with medium (abbreviation: 4_mk2_med) involves only 3 replicates (4a, 4c, 4e). Values depicted in the columns averaged are the mean values of 3 or 4 replicates, respectively.