The Combination Treatment of Curcumin and Probucol Protects Chondrocytes from TNF-α Induced Inflammation by Enhancing Autophagy and Reducing Apoptosis via the PI3K-Akt-mTOR Pathway

Figure 1

Probucol and curcumin enhance chondrocyte proliferation. (a) Cell viability at different probucol concentrations. (b) Cell viability at different curcumin concentrations. (c) Cell viability at different curcumin-probucol concentrations. (d) After incubated in 96-well plates, the cells were subsequently treated with curcumin and probucol. Cell proliferation in the control, OA, OA + curcumin, OA + probucol, and OA + curcumin + probucol groups was measured by colony formation assays. (e) Statistical analysis of the number of chondrocyte colonies. (f) Compared with the OA group, more EdU-labeled cells exhibited red fluorescence in the curcumin and probucol groups. Therefore, when applied together, curcumin and probucol would significantly reduce the number of EdU-labeled cells compared with either the curcumin or probucol groups. All cell nuclei displayed blue fluorescence with Hoechst33342 staining (magnification ×200). (g) The relative ratio of EdU-positive cells in the curcumin + probucol group was significantly higher than the other four groups at 24 h. The data are shown as the . & and indicate and 0.05 vs. OA, respectively. All experiments were carried out three times.

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