Figure 2.

Combined sildenafil and simvastatin treatment prevents the monocrotaline (MCT)-induced decrease in bone morphogenetic protein (BMP)-signal pathway molecules to a greater extent than either drug alone. mRNA was collected from whole lung tissue from saline-injected sham treated rats, MCT-injected control rats and rats treated with sildenafil, simvastatin or both. mRNA levels of BMP-2 (Aa), BMPR-Ia (Ab) and BMPR-II (Ac) were determined using reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction and normalized to GAPDH. Increases in BMP-2 (a), BMPR-Ia (b) and BMPR-II (c) are shown in (B) as the change compared with the levels in the MCT-injected control group. Data are presented in arbitrary units (A) as mean±SD; n=8/group; ^**P<0.01 vs. sham-injected (A) or vs. MCT-injected control (B); ⁺⁺P<0.01 vs. combination group (B)