Figure 6

Curcumin revokes IL-1β-induced apoptotic and inflammatory responses in monolayers of MSCs in a time dependent manner. MSC Monolayer cultures were pre-stimulated for four hours with 5 μM curcumin followed by 1 h stimulation with IL-1β. Whole cell lysates, cytoplasmic and nuclear extracts were evaluated by western blotting at various time points. A: A four-hour pre-stimulation with 5 μM curcumin suppressed IL-1β induced activation of caspase-3 and expression of COX-2 in a time dependent manner. This was confirmed by quantitative densitometry. The mean values and standard deviations from three independent experiments are shown. Expression of the housekeeping gene β-actin was not affected. B: Western blotting against activated Iκ-Bα and NF-κB demonstrated that in cultures pre-stimulated with 5 μM curcumin for four hours, followed by one-hour IL-1β stimulation, neither activation of Iκ-Bα nor translocation of NF-κB to the nucleus can be demonstrated. This was confirmed by quantitative densitometry. The mean values and standard deviations from three independent experiments are shown. Expression of the housekeeping gene β-actin and the DNA repair enzyme PARP were not affected.