Cell culture and luminex
REGRESSION
Human Endocervical Epithelial cells (END1/E6E7) were purchased from the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC; Manassas, VA, USA) and cultured in keratinocyte serum-free medium (KSFM; Gibco Life Technologies, Grand Island, NY, USA) with 0.1 ng/ml human epidermal growth factor, 0.05 mg/ml bovine pituitary extract, 0.4 mM CaClSupernatants were assessed for the concentrations of IL-1b, IL-6, IP-10 and VEGF via a BioRad Bioplex Pro custom kit as per the manufacturer's protocol. All data were acquired on a Luminex 200 instrument and analyzed within the BioPlex Manager Software, where a 5 Parameter Logistic regression formula was used to interpolate unknown cytokine concentrations from standard curves. Student's 