Fig. 2

NO release a, b and NOS2 mRNA expression (c) in mature bovine meniscus explants. Explants were cultured under normal culture conditions (control), the influence of IL-10 [10 ng/ml], or after treatment with proinflammatory TNF-α (10 and 100 ng/ml). NO release was measured photometrically by Griess reagent in the culture supernatant (n = 5). For mRNA expression analysis eight disks from the same animal were pooled for mRNA extraction (n = 5). Gene expression levels were normalized to that of GAPDH house-keeping gene and then normalized to the non-stimulated control group without compression, which had an expression level = 1. A concentration series for IL-10 is given in figure (c) (n = 3). a-c indicate clusters of experimental groups which are significantly different from each other with P < 0.05 (detailed p-values are given in the text). Data are presented as mean ± 95 CI