FIGURE 4.

TonEBP silencing reduces expression levels of inflammatory molecules in NP cells. A–F, irrespective of extracellular tonicity, mRNA levels of TonEBP (A), TauT (B), CCL2 (C), IL6 (D), TNF (E), and NOS2 (F) are significantly suppressed in NP cells transduced with shRNA against TonEBP (ShTonEBP) when compared with cells transduced with control shRNA (ShCTR). G–I, TonEBP-suppressed cells (ShTonEBP) also evidence significantly diminished levels of CCL2 (G), IL6 (H), and TNFα (I) protein in NP cells. Quantitative measurements represent mean ± S.E. of ≥3 biological replicates. Iso, isotonic. *, p ≤ 0.05; **, p ≤ 0.01; ***, p ≤ 0.001; ****, p ≤ 0.0001. NS, not significant.