Effect of ROS depleting agents on cytokine-induced downregulation of interendothelial junction protein expression in HBMvECs.

<p>Confluent cells were pre-treated with either SOD (200 U/ml), CAT (200 U/ml), NAC (1 mM) or APO (10 µM), followed by treatment with TNF-α (<b>A</b>) or IL-6 (<b>B</b>) (100 ng/ml, 18 hrs). Post-treatment, whole cell protein lysates were harvested for Western blotting. Histograms below gels represent the densitometric fold change in relative protein expression for VE-cadherin, occludin and claudin-5 (bars reading left to right) in response to cytokine treatment in the absence and presence of ROS depleting agent. *<i>P</i>≤0.05 versus untreated control. ^Ø<i>P</i>≤0.05 versus cytokine without ROS-depleting agent. All gels are representative.