Fig. 2.

Akt activation by LA does not contribute to its inhibiting NF-κB signaling. a, b HUVECs were starved overnight and pre-treated with LA (1 mM), tiron (20 mM), apocynin (0.3 mM), PEG-SOD (100 U/ml) and tempol (0.1 mM) for 20 min, followed by treatment with TNFα (10 ng/ml) for 10 min. Akt phosphorylation was then analyzed by Western blotting. A representative picture (a) and the summary (b) of four independent experiments are presented. *P < 0.05 versus vehicle, ^#P < 0.05 versus TNFα, Student's t-test with Bonferoni correction. c, d, HUVECs were starved overnight and pre-treated with LA (1 mM), or LA (1 mM) plus LY294002 (30 μM) for 20 min, followed by treatment with TNFα (10 ng/ml) for 10 min. IκBα degradation and Akt phosphorylation were then analyzed by Western blotting. A representative picture (c) and the summary (d, e) of four independent experiments are presented. *P < 0.05 versus vehicle, ^#P < 0.05 versus TNFα, ^$P < 0.05 versus TNFα + LA, Student's t-test with Bonferoni correction