Fig. 4.

TGF-β inhibits ADAMTS-4 promoter activity. (A) Schematic representation of the different ADAMTS-4 promoter-luciferase DNA constructs used. Hep3B cells (B) and U937 monocytes (C) were transfected with the ADAMTS-4 promoter-luciferase DNA constructs using Superfect™. The cells were either left untreated or treated overnight with 30 ng/ml TGF-β (1 μM PMA was also included for U937 only to initiate differentiation) and cell lysates were measured for luciferase activity. Data shown is the ratio of luciferase activity:protein concentration expressed as the fold change in activity relative to the equivalent untreated sample (arbitrarily assigned as 1) and is representative of three independent experiments (NS, not significant, *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001).