Fig. 4.

sVCAM-1 inhibits cell shape changes in human adult epicardial cells treated with TGFβ3. Unstimulated cells (a) and stimulated with sVCAM-1 (100 ng/ml) (b) and simultaneously with TGFβ3 (1 ng/ml) and sVCAM-1 (100 ng/ml) (c) are stained for β-catenin (a2–c2) and with phalloidin to visualize filamentous actin (a3–c3). Onset of differentiation into smooth muscle cells was visualized by staining for αSMA (a4–c4) and the state of differentiation was visualized by WT1 (a5–c5). The process of EMT was confirmed by qRT-PCR (d) analysis for epithelial and EMT markers. ×100 in a1–c1. Scale bar 20 μm. *P < 0.05 versus control, ^# P < 0.05 versus TGFβ3 stimulation, ^$ P < 0.05 stimuli versus simultaneous TGFβ3/stimuli. For patterns and abbreviations see Box 1 in Appendix