Fig. 5

Impact of TNF-α, dexamethasone, caffeine, and cAMP on H441 CTGF and TNF-α mRNA expression. H441 cells were treated with 1 μM dexamethasone, 10 mM caffeine, 1 mM cAMP, 10 ng/mL recombinant TNF-α, and/or 5 μg/mL anti-human TNF-α antibody for 24 h. qPCR against TNF-α and CTGF mRNA were performed as described in Methods. CTGF (a) and TNF-α (b, c) mRNA levels of H441 cells were normalized to GAPDH, and fold differences compared to untreated cells were calculated. Means + SD of n ≥ 3 independent experiments are shown. αTNF-α, anti-TNF-α antibody; *p < 0.05 and ***p < 0.001 compared to untreated controls; # p < 0.05 and ### p < 0.001 compared to cells treated with dexamethasone; $$$ p < 0.001 compared to cells treated with TNF-α; §§§ p < 0.001 compared to cells treated with TNF-α and dexamethasone; ††† p < 0.001 compared to cells treated with caffeine