Differences in Mammalian Target of Rapamycin Gene Expression in the Peripheral Blood and Articular Cartilages of Osteoarthritic Patients and Disease Activity

Figure 2

Relative expression of mTOR, ULK1, p21, and caspase 3 genes by real-time PCR with reference to β-actin in PBMCs (P) or granulocytes (G) compared with whole blood (WB) specimen of OA outpatients (𝑛=12). The control is shown as 1.0 as required for relative quantification with the real-time PCR protocol. The following symbols: ∗, #, †, and ‡ indicate significant differences in gene expression between PBMCs and granulocytes (Student’s unpaired 𝑡-test).