Figure 7.

Human retinal microvascular endothelial cells (HRMECs) were left untreated or treated with tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) (50 ng/ml) for 24 hours. Protein expression of CD146 in cell lysate was determined by Western blotting (panel A). Levels of sCD146 were quantified in the culture media by Western blot analysis (panel B). Results are expressed as mean ±SD from three different experiments (*p < 0.05; independent t-test). HRMECs were left untreated or treated with tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) (50 ng/ml) or TNF-α (50 ng/ml) plus ONO-4817 (10 µM) (panel C). Levels of sCD146 were quantified in the culture media by ELISA. Results are expressed as median (interquartile range) from three different experiments. Kruskal-Wallis test and Mann-Whitney tests were used for comparisons between three groups and two groups, respectively. *p < 0.05 compared with values obtained from untreated cells. #p < 0.05 compared with TNF-α-plus ONO-4817-treated cells. HRMECs were left untreated or treated with cobalt chloride (CoCl₂) (300 µM) (panel D) or vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) (50 ng/ml) (panel E) for 24 hours. Levels of sCD146 were quantified in the culture media by ELISA. Results are expressed as median (interquartile range) from three different experiments (*p < 0.05; Mann-Whitney test).