Figure 2.

Insulin secretion and mRNA expression in curcumin- and cytokine-treated islets. (a) Secreted insulin content was determined from 75 hand-picked islets of roughly the same size. Stimulated insulin content was determined from at least three independent islet preparations, and values are shown as micro-international units per 75 islets. (b) Total mRNA was isolated from cultured islets and PCR was quantified using densitometry. Insulin expression was normalized against that of β-actin. Data are the means±s.d. for three independent islet preparations. ^*Values differ significantly from curcumin and untreated controls (P<0.001); ^**values differ from cytokine-treated islets (P<0.01).