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. 2014 Mar 28;7(6):1653–1658. doi: 10.3892/etm.2014.1647

Figure 3.

Figure 3

Curcumin inhibits TNF-α-induced MMP-2 expression and activity in VSMCs. VSMCs were pretreated with curcumin (20 or 40 μM) for 1 h and exposed to 100 ng/ml TNF-α for an additional 23 h. Following treatment, the (A) protein expression, (B) mRNA expression and (C) activity levels of MMP-2 were assessed by western blot analysis, RT-PCR and gelatin zymography, respectively. (D) Densitometric analysis was conducted with Image J software to quantify the gelatin zymography data. *P<0.05, vs. control group; #P<0.05, vs. TNF-α + curcumin group. Data are expressed as the mean ± standard deviation of three independent experiments. VSMCs, vascular smooth muscle cells; TNF, tumor necrosis factor; MMP, matrix metalloproteinase; RT-PCR, reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction.