Fig. 3

Deficiency of Axl increases cytokine expression in joint tissue of mice bearing arthritis. The knockout mice lacking Axl and their littermate control received K/BxN serum injection. On day 12 the mice were euthanized, followed by removal of the ankle joints. A Cytokine levels in joint homogenates were measured as described in the Methods. B RNA was purified from joint tissue and cytokine mRNA levels were measured by quantitative RT-PCR. The results were normalized against mRNA of β-actin and relative levels of quantification were calculated. Data are means ± SEM, n = 6. For comparison of the effect of gene deficiency, two way ANOVA with the Tukey’s post hoc correction analyses was used. *, p < 0.05; **, p < 0.01