Hybridization to Affymetrix Human Gene 1·0 ST arrays AZD6244 cell line (764 885 probe sets, representing 28 869 annotated genes), staining, washing and scanning (Scanner 3000) procedures were performed as described by Affymetrix and performed by the Erasmus MC Center for Biomics. Probe set summarization, array QC and annotations

of the probe sets were performed using Affymetrix ‘Gene Expression Consolle’ (Affymetrix). All the different QC metrics analysed met the standards required by Affymetrix and showed an overall comparability of the signal distribution obtained from the different arrays. Principal component analysis was used to assess the underlying structure of the data set and define correlation relationships among samples (Partek Inc., St Louis, MO USA). Probe sets expressed differentially among conditions were identified using the class comparison tool implemented in BRB ArrayTools (National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD, USA). Briefly, we identified genes that were expressed differentially among the two classes using a random-variance t-test. The random-variance t-test is an improvement over the standard separate t-test as it permits

sharing information among genes about within-class variation without assuming that all genes Forskolin have the same variance. Genes were considered statistically significant if their P-value was less than 0·0001. A stringent significance threshold was used to limit the number of false positive findings. A ‘per gene’ estimate of the false discovery rates among genes passing the test was also computed. The false discovery rate associated with a row of the table is an estimate of the proportion of the genes with univariate P-values less than or equal to the one in that row that represent false positives. The Benjamini–Hochberg method for false discovery rate control was used for this estimation [32,33]. Genes passing the test threshold were clustered and displayed as a heatmap using Spotfire (Spotfire Inc., Somerville, MA, USA). The change in gene expression of a number of genes (IDO, IL-6, IL-8, CXCL10) as measured by microarray was confirmed

by real-time reverse transcription–polymerase Ergoloid chain reaction (RT–PCR). In brief, ASC were precultured under control, MLR (in transwell culture systems) or cytokine conditions and trypsinized at day 7. Total RNA was isolated and cDNA synthesized as described previously [34]. Quantitative gene expression was determined using TaqMan Universal PCR Master Mix and assays-on-demand for IDO (Hs 00158027.m1), IL-6 (Hs 00174131.m1), IL-8 (Hs00174114.m1) and CXCL10 (Hs 00171042.m1) (all Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA, USA) on a StepOnePlus (Applied Biosystems). Data were analysed using paired t-test or Wilcoxon’s signed-rank test depending on the distribution of the data as tested with the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test for normality.