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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2006 Mar 3.
Published in final edited form as: Circ Res. 2006 Jan 26;98(4):472–479. doi: 10.1161/01.RES.0000204725.46332.97

Figure 5.

Figure 5

CIITA isoforms and MHC II genes are not affected by simvastatin treatment of human SMCs. Aortic human SMCs were pretreated with 1 μmol/L simvastatin or vehicle for 18 hours, followed by 100 U/mL IFN-γ for 24 hours. RNA and proteins were extracted, as described in the expanded Materials and Methods section (supplemental data). TaqMan probes and specific primers were used to amplify cDNA for MHC II (HLA-Drα) (A), CIITA type III and IV (B), RFX5 (C), and COL1A2 (D). Each graph shows results from a representative experiment performed in duplicate repeated 4 times and values represent mean±SD. The data from at least 4 experiments were evaluated for significance by ANOVA followed by Sheffe's post hoc analysis using SPSS software (*P<0.001, **P<0.01, **P<0.05). IFN-γ significantly increased MHC II, RFX5, and CIITA (*P<0.001). Simvastatin decreased COL1A2 (**P<0.01) and RFX5 (***P<0.05). Protein levels were detected by Western blotting and antibodies for RFX5 (C) and CIITA (B).