Fig. 4.

Inhibitory kinetics of DEX and high-dose IgG on cytokine-induced production/release of IL-6, G-CSF and IL-1α by HCAECs. HCAECs were stimulated with 100 ng/ml of TNF-α or 10 ng/ml of IL-1β alone (without drugs) for 72 h and then treated with 1000 nM of DEX and/or 10 mg/ml of IgG at 0, 12 and 24 h after stimulation. The cell supernatants were collected at 72 h after cytokine stimulation. The protein concentrations of IL-6, G-CSF and IL-1α in the culture supernatants were measured by ELISA. Data are shown as the mean ± SD of triplicate samples and are representative of two individual experiments using HCAEC lots from two different donors. **P < 0.01 compared with 100 ng/ml TNF-α; and ‡‡P < 0.01 compared with 10 ng/ml IL-1β