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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2013 Aug 1.
Published in final edited form as: Int J Androl. 2011 Nov 15;35(4):550–561. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2605.2011.01225.x

Figure 4. TNF-α, stimulates DCN production and secretion by HTPC-Fs.

Figure 4

A: Western blot experiments revealed phosphorylation of ERK1/2 (P-ERK1/2) after 10 and 20 min, but not after 60 min, of TNF-α treatment (5 ng/ml) of HTPC-Fs. Levels of total ERK1/2 and β-actin are shown below.

B: Summary view of Western blot experiments: DCN protein levels in HTPCs were not affected by the treatment with different concentrations of TNF-α (1, 5 and 50 ng/ml) for 3 days (left graph), while in HTPC-Fs, DCN is regulated by TNF-α in dose-dependent manner. Results were normalized to β-actin protein levels (a.u.). Data shown are means + SEM of blots performed with cells of at least three different patients per group.

C: DCN mRNA expression, cellular and secreted protein levels after 72 h in HTPC-Fs exposed to 5 ng/ml TNF-α. DCN mRNA and protein levels in stimulated HTPC-Fs, are significantly higher than in untreated control cells (p<0.05). QRT-PCR results were normalized to the housekeeping gene RPL19. Western blot results were normalized to β-actin protein levels. ELISA values were normalized to total proteins amount and controls. Results are shown in arbitrary units (a.u.) and means +SEM. Numbers within columns show the number of patients used for each experiment.