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

Figure 4

Relative expression of mTOR, ULK1, p21, caspase 3 (a), COL10A1, MMP-13, and MMP-9 (b) genes compared between healthy cartilages (𝑛=14, set 1) and osteoarthritic cartilages (𝑛=15, set 1) as determined by real-time PCR analyses with reference to β -actin. Controls are shown as 1.0 as required for relative quantification with the real-time PCR protocol. Asterisks (∗) indicate significant differences from the control (Student’s unpaired 𝑡-test).

(a)

(b)