Serum levels of IL-1β and TNF-α were determined using a high sensitivity ELISA kit (catalogue no. 50–112-9749 for IL-1β) and (catalogue no. 50–112-8954 for TNF-α) from eBioscience (Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, USA), according to manufacturer instructions and as described previously by our group [25 (link)]. Inflammatory mediators were expressed as pg/ml and normalised to protein concentration in each sample.