A human macrophage cell line (human CD14+ monocytes from peripheral blood, single donor; C-12909, http://www.promocell.com/product/human-cd14-monocytes-hmocd14-pb/) from PromoCell GmbH (Heidelberg, Germany) was cultured at a density of 1×106 cells in Monocyte Attachment Medium (PromoCell GmbH). Cells were cultured in M1-Macrophage Generation Medium DXF so that they could differentiate into M1- and M2-like macrophages as in our previous study (19 (link)). In addition, these cells were treated with 1, 10 or 20 ng/ml of interleukin-4 (IL-4; R&D Systems) for 24 h. Human monocytic (THP-1) cells were obtained from the American Type Culture Collection and maintained in RPMI-1640 containing 10% fetal bovine serum (Gibco; Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc.), 1% penicillin-streptomycin (Gibco; Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc.), and 2 mmol/l of glutamine (Gibco; Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc.).