Figure 1

Measurement of aggrecanase-generated ³⁷⁴ ARGSVI-G2 fragments in human OA patient. Human cartilage explants were cultured for 21 days either non-stimulated (-▼-), or treated with pro-inflammatory cytokines 10 ng/ml oncostatin M (OSM) in combination with 20 ng/ml tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNFα) (-◆-). The conditioned medium from four independent wells was measured for the presence of aggrecanase-generated ³⁷⁴ARGSVI-G2 fragments at each collected time-point (a), or (b) accumulated throughout the study-period. As negative control, explants were frozen and thawed four times in liquid nitrogen (--). The asterisks indicate significant differences (P < 0.05). For the statistical analysis, two-tailed non-parametric t tests were used.