Fig. 9.

Metabolic characterization of endothelial cells isolated from umbilical cord of preterm and term newborns. a Reports the WB analysis against CLUH, COX II, β subunit of ATP synthase, and OPA1 in early preterm endothelial cells (32 weeks of GA), preterm endothelial cells (36 weeks of GA) and in term endothelial cells (38 weeks of GA). b–e show the relative densitometric analysis normalized on the actin signal showed in a. The WB data are representative of at least three experiments. Double asterisk indicates a significant difference for p < 0.001 among preterm endothelial cells (32 weeks of GA) with respect to the value of term endothelial cells (38 weeks of GA). All the metabolic analyses were performed on early preterm endothelial cells (32 weeks of GA), preterm endothelial cells (36 weeks of GA), and term endothelial cells (38 weeks of GA). The energy status in terms of ATP/AMP ratio is reported in f. The OXPHOS activity, as oxygen consumption and ATP synthesis are shown in g, h, respectively. i Reports the activity of hexokinase (HK), phosphofructokinase (PFK), pyruvate kinase (PK), and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), while j shows the lactate released. The lipid peroxidation and the catalase activity are reported in k and l, respectively