Fig. 2.

Hypoxic repression of hepcidin mRNA is reconstituted in the presence of THP-1-conditioned medium. HuH7 monocultures were exposed to conditioned medium from activated THP-1 macrophages cultured under normoxic conditions (A) or were treated with IL-1β (10 ng/ml) (B) before exposure to hypoxia (1% O₂) or 100 μM H₂O₂ for 24 h. Hepcidin mRNA (expressed as hepcidin/18S ratio) was significantly decreased in all groups compared with controls. Data are means ± SE of 6 observations in each group. Different letters above data bars indicate that these groups are significantly different (P < 0.05).