Figure 7.

The effects of SNP and/or S-Equol on PI₃K-Akt pathway of primary chondrocytes. The cells were treated with S-Equol for 24 h in the presence or absence of SNP for another 24 h, and then (A) PI₃K, Akt, P-Akt, Mdm2, P-Mdm2, and p53 protein levels were measured by Western blotting and β-actin was used as the internal control. The data in the right panel are expressed as the relative density compared to the untreated cells (control), which was 100%. (B) The cells were pretreated with the 10 μM PI₃K inhibitor, LY294002 (LY), for 1 h and then treated with 0.8 mM SNP and/or 30 μM S-Equol for a further 24 h and, subsequently, cell viability was measured using trypan blue exclusion. The data are expressed as a percentage of the control group. The results are the mean ± S.D. for three separate experiments. * p < 0.05 compared to the corresponding untreated control. # p < 0.05 compared to the corresponding SNP treated group. ^◆ p < 0.05 compared to the corresponding S-Equol combined with SNP treated group.