The pro-atherogenic effects of macrophages are reduced upon formation of a complex between C-reactive protein and lysophosphatidylcholine

Table 2 Changes in the mRNA expression levels of MMP-1, MMP-9, MCP-1, IL-1β and IL-8 in response to the CRP-LPC complex

mRNA	Untreated	CRP	LPC	CRP-LPC
Concentration		10 μg/ml	10 μg/ml	10 μg/ml each
ΔCt of average±S.D.
MMP-1	ND	10.63±0.76	9.78±3.26	13.63±1.08 ^┼
		(NC)	(NC)	(NC)
MMP-9	4.82±0.19	3.50±0.34*	3.47±0.28*	5.10±0.26 ^┼
		(2.6)	(2.5)	(0.8)
MCP-1	4.38±0.06	1.40±0.08*	2.18±0.02*	2.95±0.01*^┼
		(7.9)	(4.6)	(2.7)
IL-1β	12.04±0.29	1.63±0.01*	10.46±0.29*	2.38±0.21*^┼
		(3258.5)	(3.0)	(809.0)
IL-8	9.34±0.08	0.73±0.04*	7.83±0.02*	3.02±0.48*^┼
		(389.4)	(2.9)	(79.6)

Human macrophages were incubated with 10 μg/ml CRP, LPC or CRP-LPC for 24 h and mRNA expression levels of MMP-1, MMP-9, MCP-1, TNF-α, IL-1β, IL-8 and GAPDH were estimated by real-time PCR. Data analyzed were from three independent experiments. Fold changes in mRNA levels are presented, which were calculated from ΔCt values as described in the Methods section.
Each PCR was performed with 40 amplification cycles. *;p < 0.05 vs. Untreated macrophages. ^┼; p < 0.05 vs. CRP and LPC treated macrophages. Significance values were calculated using a the unpaired t test. ND; not detectable within 40 cycles of amplification, NC; non-calculable.

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