Figure 2.

Luciferase activity from pGL3 driven by wild-type or mutant caveolin promoters. Δ1, Δ2, and Δ3 refer to promoter mutants from which SRE-like sequences at −646, −395, and −287 bp (Fig. 1) had been deleted. Fibroblast monolayers transiently transfected with wild-type or mutant caveolin promoters (Δ1, Δ2, or Δ3) were incubated with 80% (vol/vol) native human plasma for 3 h at 37°C. Other transfected cells monolayers were incubated with 80% (vol/vol) native plasma in the presence of 50 μM cholesterol α-epoxide (CαEP) or with plasma from which LDL had been removed by heparin affinity chromatography. Values shown are means ± one SD for three to five determinations. Luciferase yield, determined as described, did not differ significantly from baseline values when the wild-type caveolin promoter was inserted in reverse orientation, or in the absence of cell lysate (data not shown).