*2.1. Material*

HUVEC, human umbilical vein endothelial cells (Gibco, Waltham, MA, USA); M200 culture medium (Gibco, Waltham, MA, USA); DMEM High Glucose w/o Sodium Pyruvate w/ L-Glutamine (Euro Clone, Pero, Italy); TNF-α (Sino Biological Inc., Wayne, NJ, USA); Protease Inhibitor Cocktail (Sigma-Aldrich, St. Louis, MO, USA); Hyaluronate Lyase

from Streptomyces hyalurolyticus (Sigma-Aldrich, St. Louis, MO, USA); Transwell system with filter of 0.4 µm pore size, 6.5 mm diameter (Corning, New York, NY, USA); FITC labelled dextran (Mw~250,000, Sigma-Aldrich, St. Louis, MO, USA); heparinases I–II–III (form F. heparinum, Seikagaku, Tokyo, Japan); 2-Aminoacridone, AMAC-(Sigma-Aldrich, St. Louis, MO, USA); Chondroitinase ABC (from Proteus vulgaris, Seikagaku, Tokyo, Japan); 3-hydroxybiphenol (Fluka, Buchs, Switzerland); D-Glucuronic acid (Sigma-Aldrich, St. Louis, MO, USA); prostaglandin E1 and indomethacin (Sigma); all chemicals were purchased by Sigma-Aldrich (St. Louis, MO, USA).
