Figure 2

Thrombin stimulates inflammatory cytokine secretion predominately from primary cultures of newly differentiated human adipocytes. Cultures of adipose tissue (n = 5), newly differentiated adipocytes (n = 5) or preadipocytes (n = 3) were stimulated with thrombin (1 U/ml) or thrombin (10 U/ml) in the presence or absence of a thrombin inhibitor (lepirudin) for 24 hours. PBS served as the negative control. The following cytokines were measured from the supernatants of confluent cultures. A) IL-1β; B) IL-6; C) TNF-α; D) MCP-1. Means ± SEM,. *P < 0.05 thrombin vs. PBS. ± P < 0.05 thrombin + lepirudin vs. thrombin.