Fig. 2

Effects of cell interactions with stromal cells from different origins on IL-23 mRNA expression. PBMCs, synoviocytes, and non-lesional and lesional skin fibroblasts were cultured alone or in co-culture at a 5:1 ratio for 24 h, in the presence or not of PHA (5 μg/ml). At 24 h, RNA of cells alone and co-culture were recovered, and PBMCs + synoviocytes or PBMCs + skin fibroblasts, cultured alone, were pooled to recover RNA. IL-23 expression was analyzed by RT-qPCR. The results showed the gene expression normalized by GAPDH expression. In B, the expression in PBMCs + stromal cells was normalized to 1, and the expression in co-cultures was rationalized accordingly. “*” compares the co-cultures vs. PBMCs + stromal cells, *p<0.05, Wilcoxon test. n = 5 experiments