Figure 9

PDGF-AA dampens the stimulatory effect of TGFβ on α-smooth muscle actin mRNA expression. As illustrated in the schematic (A), sub-confluent Mlg cells were stimulated with either vehicle (veh), PDGF-AA (AA) or TGFβ (T) at the different time points. The levels of α-SMA mRNA were determined for the different treatment groups after a total of 48 h, using quantitative real time RT-PCR, with beta-2-microglobulin as the "housekeeping" gene. For each reverse-transcribed RNA, 3 triplicate amplifications were performed. The column graph in (B) represents the average of 5 independent experiments. The error bars represent standard deviations from the averages for each treatment group. *, P < 0.001 and #, P < 0.05.