Figure 5.

Gene expression profiling of secretory proteins after LEV treatment reveals a preferential differentiation of THP1 cells to M2b macrophages. THP1 cells were pre-incubated with PMA (10 nM) for 48 h and treated with vehicle (HBS) or LEVs (10 μg/mL) for an additional 48 h. (a) mRNA expression of M1- and M2-specific chemokines was analysed by RT-qPCR. G6PD was used for normalization. Statistically significant fold changes (FC) are indicated in different colours according to the increased degree (light grey, 1.5 < FC < 5; medium grey, 5 < FC < 10). -, non-significant. (b, c) mRNA expression of representative M1 (b) and M2b (c) macrophage-specific chemokines. ns, non-significant. (d) mRNA expression of M2 macrophage-specific cytokines as determined by RT-qPCR. Data in (a-d) are expressed as the mean fold change ± SEM of triplicate treatments and statistical significance was analysed by Student’s t-tests.

*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.