Immunomodulatory Role of Ocimum gratissimum and Ascorbic Acid against Nicotine-Induced Murine Peritoneal Macrophages In Vitro
Figure 3
Effects of nicotine (10 mM), aqueous extract (Ae-Og) (10 μg/mL), and ascorbic acid (AA) (0.01 mM) on cytokine profiles in murine peritoneal macrophages at protein and mRNA levels are presented in this figure. After the treatment schedule the cells and the cell-free supernatants were collected separately. The levels of (a) TNF-α (pg/mL), (b) IL-12p70 (pg/mL), (c) TGF-β (pg/mL), and (d) IL-10 (pg/mL) in the culture supernatant were evaluated by sandwich ELISA. The cells were dissolved in TRIZOL for mRNA extraction and analyzed using real-time PCR to study different proinflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokine mRNA expressions. Quantitative real-time PCR results (e) show the expression of studied cytokines and the data are presented as fold changes compared with the control cells as follows: (f) TNF-α, (g) IL-12p40, (h) TGF-β, and (i) IL-10 mRNA. Results are expressed as means ± S.E.M. from three replicate experiments yielding similar results. “*” indicates statistically significant () difference of in nicotine-exposed macrophages compared with control, and “#” indicate statistically significant () difference in Ae-Og and AA-supplemented macrophages compared with nicotine-treated macrophages.
