Table 2.

Effect of LDL on cytokine gene expression.

	Native LDL	Atherogenic LDL
TNF-α	1.0 ± 0.3 (1.11)	2.0 ± 0.5 (2.1)  P = 0.05
CCL18	1.1 ± 0.5 (1.0)	4.4 ± 0.9 (2.8)  P = 0.03

Monocytes were isolated from whole blood of healthy donors by density gradient followed by selection of CD14⁺ cells by magnetic separation. Cells were cultured for 7 days. Native or atherogenic LDL was added at a concentration of 100 µg/mL and the cells were incubated for 24 hours. RNA was isolated and gene expression was measured by RT-PCR technique. The table shows the relative expression of the genes. As 1, the control gene expression (without LDL) was taken. Values in parentheses are standard deviations.