Figure 3

Chondroitin sulphate (CS) inhibited MSU induced cytokine production. THP-1 macrophages were pretreated for 4 hours with varying physiological concentrations of chondroitin sulfate (CS, range 0–200 μg/ml) followed by stimulation with MSU (10 mg/dl) for 24 hours. Media were analyzed for cytokines: a) IL-1β, b) TNF-α, and c) IL-8. Production of IL-1β (p = 0.003) and TNF-α (p = 0.02) were significantly inhibited by CS while IL-8 (p = 0.41) showed a similar but non-significant trend. *p ≤ 0.05, **p ≤ 0.01 and ***p ≤ 0.001 generated using One-Way ANOVA with Dunnett’s Post-Hoc Test. Results are expressed as a percent of the positive control (left bar with MSU, no CS). Representative mean (standard deviations) raw cytokine concentrations (in pg/ml) for the MSU stimulated conditions without and with 200 mg/dl CS were as follows: IL-1β 348 (184) and 61 (79); TNF-α 359 (440) and 46 (55); IL-8 8502 (193) and 4428 (4009).