Toll-like receptor 4 plays an anti-HBV role in a murine model of acute hepatitis B virus expression

Figure 2 HBV antigenemia and replication in TLR4-mutant C3H/HeJ mice or normal C3H/HeN mice. Groups of four C3H/HeN or C3H/HeJ mice were injected intravenously with 10 μg of pHBV3.6 and 10 μg of pEGFP-N1 that was used as control of transfection efficiency by hydrodynamics-based transfection. The HBsAg (A) or HBeAg (B) in the serum was detected by ELISA kits as described in Materials and methods. ^aP<0.05. (C) The total RNA or cytoplasmic DNA was purified from liver and hybridized with HBV specific probes to analyze the HBV transcription or replication. The number below each land of Northern or Southern blot was represented as the relative fold of expression comparing to d2 result of C3H/HeN mice. N, naïve C3H/HeN. (D) The serum DNA was purified after treatment with 20 U DNase I and the HBV-DNA was detected by PCR method. The number below each land was represented as the relative fold of expression comparing to d3 result of C3H/HeN mice. M, 100-bp DNA ladder; N, naïve C3H/HeN. The sALT level was represented as mean (SD).