Fig. 2

Cytokine and chemokine levels from epithelial cells exposed to N. meningitidis of IMD (gray) and carriage (white) isolates from outbreak 1 (invasive n = 1, carriage n = 3), outbreak 2 (invasive n = 1, carriage n = 1) and outbreak 3 (invasive n = 3). Box plots represent the median, 1st and 3rd quartiles and min/max from 6 experiments for each isolate. Differences between invasive and linked carriage isolates within each outbreak were calculated using a Mann‒Whitney test