Figure 5.

 COL1A1 promoter activity after mithramycin treatment. Transient transfection of systemic sclerosis fibroblasts with COL1A1 promoter-CAT constructs followed by mithramycin (50–100 nmol/l) was performed as described in "Materials and methods". (A) The results with –84 bp, –174 bp, and –804 bp constructs are shown. The efficiency of transfection was corrected by assays of ß-galactosidase activity measured by an enzymatic assay. These experiments were repeated three times, each in duplicate. (B) Densitometric analysis of three separate experiments, each performed in duplicate. p Values obtained comparing the transcriptional activity of each of the constructs in cells treated with mithramycin compared with the transcriptional activity of the same constructs in the untreated cells were significant (p<0.001 for each of the constructs).