Fig. 1.

Curcumin attenuates IL-1β production from IECs. A: confluent Caco-2 monolayers were pretreated with curcumin (C; 5 μM) for 48 h and then primed with LPS (L; 1 μg/ml) overnight. Inflammasome was activated (second signal) by nigericin (N; 20 μM, 20 min). Conditioned medium was collected after 6 h and secreted IL-1β was measured by ELISA. Data (means ± SD, n = 3) are presented as percent control where control represents cells treated with LPS alone. B: total RNA was extracted from confluent monolayers of Caco-2 cells with or without treatment with curcumin (5 μM) for 48 h and IL-1β expression was determined by real-time RT-PCR. Data (means ± SD; n = 3) are presented as IL-1β expression relative to β-actin. *P < 0.05.