Figure 6.

Endothelial NOS protein expression in PAEC as measured by Western blotting. Cells were either not treated or stimulated overnight with either prednisolone (P; 1 μM) or TNF-α (T; 10 ng ml⁻¹) alone or with combination of the two (±SIN-1 (100 nM); DETA-NONOate (NOate; 500 μM); SIN-1+ODQ (1 μM); DETA-NONOate+ODQ; 8-bromo-cGMP (100 μM) and 8-pCPT-cGMP (100 μM)). Where applied, PAECs were preincubated with ODQ for at least an hour before SIN-1 or DETA-NONOate was added. Panel a shows the representative blot and panel b the results of the densitometric analyses of six blots (expressed as relative optical density (OD) mm⁻²). GAPDH expression was used as a loading control. ^*P<0.05, significantly different from control. ^#P<0.05, significantly decreased compared to prednisolone/TNF-α-treated cells only. ^$P<0.05, significantly increased compared to prednisolone and TNF-α-treated cells. ^¶P<0.05, significantly inhibited compared to cells treated with SIN-1 or DETA-NONOate alone in the presence of prednisolone and TNF-α.