Figure 3

Inflammatory gene regulation by corticosteone and TNF-α in FLS. Fold change in mRNA expression of inflammatory genes in (fibroblast-like synoviocytes) FLS, determined by real-time RT-PCR. Expression of mRNA was measured at 16 hr for IL-6, chemokine ligand 2 (CCL-2), vascular cell adhesion molecule 1 (VCAM-1) and intercellular adhesion molecule 1 (ICAM-1) following pretreatment with either corticosterone (a-d) (100 nmol/l) or TNFα (e-h) (10 ng/ml) for 24 hr. Data were normalized for levels of the housekeeping gene 18S rRNA and presented as fold change in expression (± standard error) relative to untreated wild-type (WT) control FLS. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.001 versus respective untreated control; #P > 0.05 versus untreated WT control FLS. Results shown are the combined duplicates of three separate FLS lines and two WT control FLS lines.