Fig. 1. Effects of PLTX on IL-8, IL-6, IL-1α and TNF-α gene expressions (A and B) and protein release in cell media (C and D). Cells were exposed to 1.0 × 10^–11 M PLTX for 2, 4 and 24 h (panels A and C) or to 1 h exposure to 1.0 × 10^–11 M PLTX followed by 1, 3 and 23 h culture in toxin-free medium (panels B and D). Gene expression data are expressed as the fold change with respect to the untreated sample specific mRNA considered as 1 (Kim et al. 2001)16 whereas protein release is expressed as ng mL^–1 of each analyte released in cell media on the basis of the respective calibration curves and are the mean ± SE of three independent experiments performed in duplicate. Statistical differences: *, p < 0.05; **, p < 0.01 (one-way ANOVA).