Figure 2

Effects of PUFAs on cell viability, CRP secretion, and CRP mRNA expression in HepG2 cells. (A) Cell viability was measured by MTT assay after 24 h of PUFA treatment and after a further 24 h of IL-1β/IL-6-stimulation. Cell viability is expressed as a percentage relative to the control value from cells without PUFA treatment and cytokine challenge. (B) Cells were treated with 10 ng/mL of IL-1β/IL-6 for 24 h followed by 100 μM PUFAs for another 24 h. The amount of CRP released into the cell medium was determined by western blot analysis. Pretreatment of HepG2 cells with DHA and EPA resulted in an inhibition of CRP mRNA expression as measured by RT-PCR (C) and real-time quantitative PCR (D). Data are expressed as the mean ± SEM of at least three independent experiments, *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001 compared to the IL-1β/IL-6-treated cells.