Cells were incubated at 37°C in 5% CO2 for 72 h and pulsed with 1 µCi/well [3H]-thymidine (GE General Health, Mississauga, ON, Canada) during

the last 16 h. Disintegrations per minute (dpm) from triplicate wells were analysed. Data are presented as mean Seliciclib mouse dpm ± standard error of the mean (s.e.m.). The same experiment was performed three times using five to eight animals. Culture supernatant was collected from splenocytes 48 h after incubation with SEB and atorvastatin. IL-2 protein levels were quantified by the mouse IL-2 Duoset ELISA (R&D Systems, Minneapolis, MN, USA), as per the manufacturer’s protocol, and read using a SpectraMAX 250 plate reader (Molecular Devices, Sunnyvale, CA, USA). Similarly, TNF-α concentration was assayed in culture supernatant at 24 h and quantified by the mouse TNF-α Ready-SET-Go Kit (eBioscience, San Diego, CA, USA), as per the manufacturer’s protocol. In some experiments, MVA was also added to the SEB plus atorvastatin, and supernatants assayed for IL-2 and TNF-α as described. Results presented were representative of at least three independent experiments. Mouse vascular smooth muscle cells (SMC) (MOVAS) (generously provided by Dr M. Husain, Toronto General Hospital

Research Institute, Toronto, Ontario, Canada) were cultured [Dulbecco'smodified Eagle's medium (DMEM) supplemented with 10% heat-inactivated fetal bovine serum (FBS), sodium Akt inhibitor pyruvate, non-essential amino acid, 2 mM l-glutamine and 10 mM HEPES] for 6 h with atorvastatin in addition to 25 ng/ml recombinant mouse TNF-α (eBioscience). In experiments to determine the effect of the mitogen-activated protein (MEK) 1/2 inhibitor U0126 (Cell Signaling, Beverly, MA, USA) on MMP-9 production, U0126 was used instead of atorvastatin. After the incubation period, the MOVAS cells were lysed with TRIzol reagent (Invitrogen Life Technologies, Carlsbad, CA, USA) and total RNA was isolated with a standard chloroform extraction method. mafosfamide Complementary DNA (cDNA) was synthesized using the GeneAmp

RNA PCR kit and murine leukaemia virus reverse transcriptase (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA, USA). cDNA was then amplified by real-time RT–PCR following the manufacturer’s protocol with glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) primers and probe (Applied Biosystems) and the MMP-9 primers and probe set (Assays-on-Demand; Applied Biosystems) in an ABI PRISM 7900 Sequence Detection System (Applied Biosystems). Data were collected and analysed using GraphPad Prism 4 software (GraphPad Software Inc, La Jolla, CA, USA). Relative quantities of PCR products were determined off the standard curve generated in each run from cDNA known to contain MMP-9 and expressed as a ratio against the housekeeping gene GAPDH. Real-time RT–PCR was performed in at least three independent experiments.