Figure 2

Focused array analysis. The effect of 4 immunomodulatory herbal derivatives on LPS-induced THP-1 cells. (A) Heat map representation of the expression profiles of 191 immune-related genes in THP-1 cells after the indicated treatments. Note the overall similarity between Echinacea BF/S+L/Ep and cytopiloyne treatments. (B) Time profile of test compound effects on LPS-stimulated gene expression compared to LPS stimulation only. (C) Correlation between gene expression patterns obtained from RT-PCR (left column) and focused array (right column). Kinetics of the expression of TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-8 genes were analyzed by RT-PCR and microarray. Red: LPS only; green: shikonin + LPS; black: emodin + LPS; blue: cytopiloyne + LPS; yellow: BF/S+L/Ep + LPS. The RT-PCR ratio was relative to the gene expression in vehicle alone at the same time point. The Y-axis in the focused array is shown in log₂ scale.