Figure 7. The NF-κB pathway is involved in the induction of IL-6 by MA and gp120.
SVGA astrocytes were treated with 500 μM of MA once a day for 3 days for MA treatment. The cells were then seeded in 6-well plates with 8×105 cells and transfected with 2 μg of plasmid expressing gp120. Untreated cells were also transfected with 2 μg of plasmid expressing gp120. For inhibitor treatments, cells were treated with the specific inhibitors for the NF-κB pathway (SC514) 1 hour prior to addition of MA and/or gp120. The cells were harvested 6 hours post-transfection to quantify the mRNA expression levels of IL-6 in the presence of SC514 (A). In order to determine the levels of IL-6 protein, the cell culture supernatants were collected 24 hours post-transfection (B). Each bar shows the mean ± SE of 3 independent experiment with each performed in triplicates. The p-value of ≤0.01 (**) was considered to be statistically significant as calculated using student's t-test.