Figure 5

Stimulation of COX-2 promoter activity in HeLa cells. As control, a luciferase construct driven by the synthetic NF-κB dependent promoter tk(NF-κB)₆-luc was transfected in HeLa cells. The basal level of the unstimulated promoter was set to one. Treatment of transfected cells with 50 ng PMA per ml medium for 6 h resulted in a more than 50-fold increase in luciferase activity, whereas treatment of transfected cells with TNF α (200 U/ml) resulted in a moderate increase (< 10-fold). Within the same assay the COX-2 promoter driven luciferase construct was tested. The activity of the promoter without treatment was set to one. PMA induced the promoter activity about 30-fold, whereas TNF had no measurable effect. Standard deviations of triplicate transfection assays are depicted as arrow bars.