Fig. 6.

Nodal-induced apoptosis is modulated by various signaling molecules. A: Western blotting was performed using protein extracts (25 μg) from INS-1 cells transfected with expression vectors coding for Nodal and either empty vector (EV), or dominant negative (DN)-ALK7, DN-Smad3, or DN-Smad2 for 36 h or from INS-1 cells cotransfected with Nodal cDNA and EV or Nodal cDNA with constitutively active (CA)-Akt or with XIAP (B) or transfected with or without CA-Akt or XIAP and exposed to Nodal protein (1 μg/ml) for 24 h using anti-cleaved caspase-3, anti-Akt, or anti-GAPDH antibodies (C). Data represent ≥3–4 experiments.