Murine Immune Cell Isolation and Stimulation

Dextran sodium sulfate was purchased from Sigma-Aldrich (MO, USA). The chemical compounds of A. gigas were provided by Yoongho Lim (Konkuk University, Seoul, Korea): twelve active ingredients of A. gigas was purchased from Biopurify Phytochemicals Ltd (Sichuan, China) and the purity of each compound was at least 98% as determined by HPLC system fitted with a RP-C18 column (Phenomenex, Torrance, CA, USA) (Maharjan et al., 2018 (link)). Fluorophore conjugated antibodies against CD4, CD11b, Gr-1 and IFN-γ; the neutralizing antibodies against IL-4, IL-12 and IFN-γ; the antibody against CD3ε and CD28 were purchased from BD biosciences (CA, USA). FITC conjugated IL-17A antibody was obtained from Thermo Fisher Scientific (MA, USA). Recombinant murine IL-6, IL-23 and human TGF-β were purchased from PeproTech (NJ, USA).