Fig. 7.

Involvement of Rho guanosine triphosphatases (GTPases) in mucin 1 (MUC1) mediated regulation of inflammation, migration, and invasion in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) fibroblast-like synoviocytes (FLSs). RA FLSs transfected with the indicated small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) were serum-starved for 24 hours and then stimulated with or without lysophosphatidic acid (LPA, 10 uM) for 24 hours. a) Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) was conducted to measure the messenger RNA (mRNA) expression levels of proinflammatory cytokines (n = 5). b) Transwell chamber assay was conducted to measure migration and invasion of RA FLSs (n = 4). Data are presented as the mean and standard error of the mean (SEM). *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001; one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by Tukey’s test was used. CCL-2, C-C motif chemokine ligand-2; IL, interleukin; NC, negative control; ns, not significant.