Our results suggest that bacterial infection will result in relatively greater chemokine (CCL5, CXCL10) release, and relatively less cytokine (IL-6, TNFα) release, from microglia, compared to single-stranded virus infection.These findings emphasise that protein level does not always reflect mRNA level, and other factors may influence the amount of protein that is detectable. This evidence concerns the gene IL6 and viral infectious disease.