Fig. 5
UC/PL-MSCs inhibit Rho/MRTF/SRF signaling in HIMFs. HIMFs were treated with TGF-β1 (5 ng/mL) and co-cultured with or without UC/PL-MSCs at 1 or 2 × 105 cells/insert for 48 h. a qPCR analysis of the relative mRNA expression of MRTFA, SRF, RHOA, ROCK1, and ROCK2. The data were normalized to GAPDH expression and expressed as relative values compared with the control (n = 3). b Representative Western blots show the protein expression of MRTF-A, SRF, and RhoA (MRTF-A and SRF from the nuclear extracts with HDAC1 as a loading control, RhoA from the cytosolic extracts with GAPDH as a loading control). c Quantitation of MRTF-A, SRF, and RhoA from Western blot analyses (n = 3). Data are expressed as the means ± SEM. #P < 0.05 and ##P < 0.01 versus the untreated control; *P < 0.05 and ***P < 0.001 versus the TGF-β1 treatment only; †P < 0.05 compared between the UC-MSCs and PL-MSCs co-culture. NS, not significant