Fig. 2

TNF-α effects on GMSC and HMEC-1 cell proliferation. GMSCs were treated in growth medium with different concentrations of tumour necrosis factor (TNF)-α (1 ng/mL to 100 ng/mL) for a 48 h or b 72 h. Human microvascular endothelial cell (HMEC)-1 cells were treated in growth medium with different concentrations of TNF-α (1 ng/mL to 100 ng/mL) for (c) 48 h or (d) 72 h. At the end of the treatments, the cell proliferation was evaluated using the MTS assay, as described in the Methods. The data are expressed as the percentage versus the untreated cells (CTRL), which was set to 100%, and are presented as the mean values ± SEM of three independent experiments, each performed in duplicate. e GMSCs and HMEC-1 cells were treated in the absence or presence of TNF-α (100 ng/mL) after 72 h of cell treatments. At the end, cells were collected, and the amount of phosphatidylserine externalization was evaluated using the Annexin V staining protocol. The distribution of the early and late apoptotic cells is shown. The significance of the differences was determined by one-way ANOVA, followed by Bonferroni’s post-hoc test: *P ≤ 0.05 vs. control