Fig. 5.

The effect of apigenin and curcumin on NF-κB-mediated trans-activation in Hep3B cells. The cells were transfected with the pNF-κB-Luc plasmid either alone (experiments involving curcumin or apigenin where DMSO was used as a vehicle control), or along with pcDNA3 control vector or the NF-κB superrepressor (IκBαΔN). The cells were then either left untreated or incubated for 3 h with 100 U/ml IL-1 (the inhibitors were added 1 h before the addition of IL-1). The luciferase activity in cell extracts was then determined and normalized to the total protein concentration. In each case, the normalized luciferase activity in untreated cells was arbitrarily assigned as 1 (not shown) with those from IL-1 treated cells represented as Fold induction. The results are mean ± SD from three independent experiments (*P < 0.05; **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001).