Figure 5.

Ethoxylated Surfactants May Promote Adipogenesis via Inhibition of TRβ. Antagonist activity for the TRβ as measured via FRET reporter gene assay using the TRβ GeneBLAzer Reporter Assay as described in the Methods. Percent agonist TRβ activity for the T3 positive control relative to its maximum response (A), percent TRβ antagonism of intra-assay EC₈₀ T3 (concentration that exhibits 80% of maximum T3 response; 0.3 nM) for various alkyl chain length ethoxylated surfactants (B), inhibition or enhancement of cell viability relative to vehicle control for various alkyl chain length ethoxylated surfactants (C), percent TRβ antagonism relative to intra-assay EC₈₀ T3 for various ethoxylate chain length NPEOs (D), and inhibition or enhancement of cell viability relative to vehicle control for various ethoxylate chain length NPEOs (E). Data presented as mean ± SEM from 3 independent experiments. * indicates lowest concentration with significant antagonist activity relative to EC₈₀ T3, p < .05, as per 1-way ANOVA and Dunnett’s posthoc test in GraphPad Prism 7.0.