FIGURE 1.

Stimulation by IL-1β of PGE₂ production by rodent and human islets. Cultured human islets produced increasing levels of PGE₂ in the presence of IL-1β in a time-related, linear manner, and PGE₂ production stimulated by IL-1β was completely inhibited by the specific COX-2 antagonist, NS-398 (p < 0.01–0.001). Islets were obtained from three different donors; individual experiments were performed in triplicate. Inset, 24-h incubation results from experiments using mice and rat isolated islets were comparable with the experiments using human islets, i.e. NS-398 inhibited IL-1β-induced PGE₂ production (*, p < 0.05; **, p < 0.01).