Figure 1.

Effects of nicotine on cellular activity and chondrogenic markers of chondrocytes. Initially, chondrocytes were treated with nicotine doses of 100, 500, and 1,000 µM for 7 days to determine their in vitro proliferation ability (A). Further, due to higher damaging effect, 1,000 µM nicotine was employed in further experiments. (B) Western blotting dependent protein expressions of chondrocyte-specific markers including Sox9, Col II, and aggrecan. Further, the relative quantification of alcian blue staining (C) of control and nicotine-treated chondrocytes was done. The results are presented as mean ± SD (n = 3; **P < 0.05 and ***P < 0.001, respectively). SD: standard deviation.