Figure 5.

The effect of STBM on monocytes is partly mediated by NF-κB. (A) Monocytes were incubated during 4 h without or with 300 μg/ml STBM-NP prepared from three different placentas. Cellular RNA was extracted, reverse-transcribed, and the pooled cDNA was examined for the expression of several genes. Transcript fold change was calculated with the $2^{-\mathrm{\Delta \Delta }{C}_t}$. (B,C) Monocytes were pre-incubated with either 10 μM 6AQ, or 10 μM PA or DMSO alone prior to addition of (B) 300 μg/ml STBM-NP or (C) 100 pg/ml LPS. After 16 h of incubation, cytokine secretion was measured by ELISA and reported as a percentage of secretion relative to that of monocytes stimulated by STBM-NP in the absence of any drug. Data are presented as mean ± SEM of three independent co-culture experiments with four STBM-NP preparations. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01. LPS was used as a positive control.