Fig. 1.

TGF-β inhibits ADAMTS-4 mRNA expression in THP-1 macrophages. THP-1 macrophages were treated for 24 h with the indicated concentration of TGF-β (A) or with 30 ng/ml of this cytokine for the time points shown (B). Total RNA was isolated and subjected to RT-qPCR. The Ct method was used for analysis and the values for ADAMTS-4 were normalised to the control gene GAPDH (A) or RPL13A (B). The data shows the expression relative to the 0 ng/ml (A) or 0 h (B) (arbitrarily assigned as 1) (mean ± SD from three independent experiments). Asterisks indicate significant down-regulation of ADAMTS-4 mRNA expression (*P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001).