Fig. 4

Effects of combined treatment with artesunate and MTX on primary RA-FLS. a–c After combined treatment with artesunate and MTX for 24 h, wound healing and transwell assays showed the capacity of horizontal migration (a), vertical migration (b), and invasion (c) of primary RA-FLS. d–f Effects of combined treatment with artesunate and MTX on the expression of MMP-2, MMP-9, TIMP-1, and TIMP-2 in primary RA-FLS were measured by Western blot (d), qPCR (e), and ELISA (f). d–f shared the same figure key. Each bar represents mean ± SD from 6 RA patients. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001, compared with RA-FLS without artesunate treatment. ^△P < 0.05, ^△△P < 0.01, compared with RA-FLS treatment with MTX (10 nM)