TLR4 signaling and the inhibition of liver hepcidin expression by alcohol

Figure 1 Hepcidin mRNA expression. cDNA, synthesized from RNA isolated from the livers of toll-like receptor 4 mutant (C3H/HeJ) and wildtype (C3H/HeOuJ) mice pair-fed with regular and ethanol-containing diets, was employed in real-time polymerase chain reaction to measure hepcidin mRNA expression, as described in Methods. Hepcidin expression in ethanol-fed mice was expressed as fold expression of that in the respective mice pair-fed with the regular diet (mean ± SE; n = 10 per group).