Fig. 2.

Effect of UA on IL-1β induced expression of iNOS, COX2, and MMPs. Chondrocytes were treated with IL-1β (20 ng/ml) alone or UA (1, 7.5 and 15 μM) in combination with IL-1β (20 ng/ml) for 48 h. a Protein expression of iNOS, COX2, MMP3, and MMP13 were determined by western blot. b, c, d, e Relative protein expression of iNOS, COX2, MMP3, and MMP13 shown as histograms. f, g, h Relative gene expression of MMP9, ADAMTS4, and Collagen 2a1 were measured by RT-qPCR. Data are presented as mean ± S.D. n = 6. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001 versus the IL-1β group