Figure 5.

The activation of PPARγ eliminated the effect of AGEs on inducing gene expression of RAGE in HSCs in vitro. Serum-deprived HSCs were treated with AGEs (100 µg·mL⁻¹) in the presence or absence of PGJ₂ or rosiglitazone at various doses in serum-depleted media for 24 h. Total RNA and whole cell lysates were prepared for evaluating gene expression of RAGE. (A) Real-time PCR analyses. Values are presented as mRNA fold changes (mean ± SD, n ≥ 3). *P < 0.05, versus untreated control cells (the corresponding first column); ‡P < 0.05, versus cells treated with AGEs only (the corresponding second column); (B) Western blotting analyses. Representatives were from three independent experiments. β-Tubulin was used as an internal control for equal loading. Italic numbers beneath blots were fold changes (mean ± SD) in the densities of the bands compared with the untreated control in the blot (n = 3), after normalization with the internal invariable control.