Fig. 3.
Time requirements for effects of LXR/RXR agonists on macrophage survival and identification of candidate genes. Macrophages were preincubated with T1317 and 9cRA for different periods of time and then stimulated with anisomycin (Anisom) (A) or SB202190 plus LPS (B) for 6 h. The levels of caspase activity (A) or the percentage of annexin V-positive cells were determined as described above. Error bars represent standard deviations. *, P < 0.05, vs. treatment with anisomycin (A) or SB plus LPS (B) alone. (C) mRNA samples from macrophages stimulated with vehicle or the combination of T1317 (1 μM) and 9cRA (1 μM) for 16 h were subjected to expression profile analysis by using Codelink Mouse Uniset 1 microarrays. The relative expression levels of genes with annotations linked to apoptosis changing by a factor of ≥1.5-fold are illustrated. Values are means of biological replicates. Changes in gene expression for AIM, Birc1a, Bcl-xL, Dnase1l3, and caspases 1, 7, 11, and 12 were independently confirmed by Northern blot analysis (data not shown).