Figure 9

Effect of diosgenin on the production of IL-6 (a) and IL-8 (b) by human rheumatoid arthritis (RA) fibroblast-like synoviocytes (FLS). Cells were stimulated or not with IL-1β (1 ng/ml) for 4 hours and then 40 μM diosgenin was added for 24 or 48 hours. The control bars represent unstimulated cells. The concentrations of IL-6 and IL-8 were determined in culture supernatants by ELISA. Measurements were made on FLS from three different patients. Data are expressed as mean ± SD of three experiments. ^# A P-value of less than 0.05 (Fisher's protected-least-significant-difference [PLSD] test) was considered to indicate significance in comparison with controls, and **^{, ##}P value of less than 0.05 (Fisher's PLSD test) was considered to indicate significance in comparison with IL-1β alone.