Immunomodulatory Role of Ocimum gratissimum and Ascorbic Acid against Nicotine-Induced Murine Peritoneal Macrophages In Vitro
Figure 1
Effects of nicotine (10 mM), aqueous extract (Ae-Og) (10 μg/mL), and ascorbic acid (AA) (0.01 mM) on nitrite (NO) generation and iNOSII expression in murine peritoneal macrophages are presented in Figure 1. Macrophages were treated with nicotine, nicotine + Ae-Og, and nicotine + AA. After the treatment schedule, as mentioned in Section 4, cell-free supernatants collected were subjected to the (a) nitrite generation spectrophotometrically by the Griess reaction and expressed as (μM). (b) The expression levels of iNOSII mRNA transcripts in murine peritoneal macrophages were measured by quantitative real-time PCR. (c) Data, obtained from RT-PCR, are presented also as fold changes of iNOSII expression compared with normal macrophages. All the experimental results are presented as mean ± S.E.M of data obtained from three independent experiments that yielded similar results. “*” indicates statistically significant () induction of nitrite generation and iNOSII expression in nicotine-treated cell compared with control and “#” indicates statistically significant () decrease of nitrite generation as well as iNOSII expression in Ae-Og and AA-supplemented macrophages compared with nicotine-treated macrophages.
