Fig. 5.

Effect of z-ligustilide on inflammatory genes expression of murine macrophages. Unstimulated or LPS-stimulated RAW264.7 cells were cultured for 4 h in the presence of graded amounts of LIG; mRNA levels were determined by RT-PCR. mRNA levels are indicated as fold change (y axis), which was calculated as indicated in Materials and Methods. Bars represent mean values of fold change +/− errors (see [28]) of triplicates (versus unstimulated cells). * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01 (versus ‘LPS alone’ stimulated cells). a: COX-2; b: TNF-α; c: iNOS; d: IL-6; e: IL-1β; f: IL-1α