CMC2.24 compound with 99.5% purity [20 (link)] was kindly provided by Dr. Francis Johnson (Chem-Master Intl. Inc., Hauppauge, NY, USA). CMC2.24 was completely dissolved in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) to a final concentration of 0.05 %. Medium plus 0.05 % DMSO was used as a solvent control. Glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) (Cat# ab37168), MMP-3 (Cat# ab52915), RUNX2 (Cat# ab23981), collagen 2a1 (Col2a1) (Cat# ab34712), Bcl-2 (Cat# ab196495), and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) (Cat# ab214424) antibodies were obtained from Abcam (Cambridge, UK). Hif-2α (Cat# NB100-122) was obtained from Novus Biologicals (Littleton, Colorado, USA). Cleaved caspase-3 (Cat# 9664), phosphorylated-p65 (p-p65) (Cat# 3033), p65 (Cat# 8242), p-IκBα (Cat# 2859), and IκBα (Cat# 9242) antibodies were ordered from Cell Signaling Technology (Danvers, MA, USA). BMS-345541 (Cat# HY-10518) was obtained from MedChem Express (Monmouth Junction, NJ, USA). SNP (Cat# 1008) was procured from Youcare Pharmaceutical Group Co., Ltd (Beijing, China).