The OKF6/TERT-2 human oral keratinocyte cells were cultured in Green’s medium, which consists of Dulbecco’s modified Eagle’s medium (DMEM) and Ham’s F12 medium in a 3:1 ratio, and is supplemented with 10% fetal calf serum (FCS), 10 ng/mL epidermal growth factor, 0.4 µg/mL hydrocortisone, 0.1 mM adenine, 5 µg/mL insulin, 5 µg/mL transferrin, 0.2 µM triiodothyronine, 2 mg/mL L-glutamine, 50 U/mL penicillin, and 50 U/mL streptomycin. All the agents were purchased from Sigma-Aldrich (Dorset, United Kingdom). Since live bacteria were not used in this study, the use of antibiotics in the cell culture medium would have minimal impact on the results.
The THP-1 monocytes were cultured in RPMI 1640 culture medium (Sigma, Dorset, United Kingdom) supplemented with 2 mM L-glutamine and 10% FCS.
Cultures were maintained in the incubators at 37 °C and 5% CO2. The cells were cultured until 80–100% confluency was achieved.