Figure 3: Effect of WCUP on levels of serum IL-6 and muscle atrophy-related proteins in CT-26 tumor-bearing mice.

(A) After sacrifice, serum IL-6 levels in mice were determined by ELISA (n = 3 per group). Statistical significance was evaluated with Student t-test. ^#p < 0.001 vs. normal mice with no tumor, *p < 0.05 and **p < 0.01 vs tumor + saline. (B) CT-26 cells were treated with the indicated concentrations of WCUP for 48 h, and then the IL-6 levels in culture supernatants were measured by ELISA (n = 3 per group). Statistical significance was evaluated with Student t-test. ***p < 0.001 vs. WCUP-untreated control cells. (C,D) mRNA and protein levels of MAFbx and MuRF-1 in gastrocnemius muscle were examined by RT-PCR and Western blotting, respectively (n = 2 per group). The levels of GAPDH and tubulin were used for normalization of the samples. Bar graph presents the means ± SD. Statistical significance was evaluated with Student t-test. ^#p < 0.05 vs. normal mice with no tumor, *p < 0.05 and **p < 0.01 vs tumor + saline. The full size gels and blots were shown in the Supplementary Fig. S3 and band of interest is indicated with an arrow.