Figure 7
Role of inflammatory cytokines in conditioned medium from MWCNT treated HBE cells in inducing pro- fibrotic gene expression. Conditioned medium from MWCNT-treated epithelial cells (24 hour exposure at 24 μg/mL) was incubated with neutralization antibody against IL-1β (5 μg/mL), IL-18 (5 μg/mL), or IL-8 (10 μg/mL) at 37°C for 30 minutes before adding to the MRC-5 cells. Gene expression of A) TN-C B) TIMP-1 and C) OPN after 48 hours of exposure was evaluated by real time quantities RT-PCR. Data were analyzed by analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by Tukey’s post hoc test. Graphs show average ± SEM of three independent experiments with triplicate of each conditions, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001, ****p < 0.0001 (between media-treated control and treatment).