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. 2014 Feb 27;9(2):e89179. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0089179

Figure 5. High phosphate activates Wnt/β-catenin pathway.

Figure 5

A) Rat mesenchymal cells treated with TGF-β and/or high phosphate were stained for β-catenin immunofluorescence (green) and counterstained with DAPI (blue) to determine β-catenin subcellular localization. Merged images of β-catenin immunofluorescence and DAPI staining are shown. High phosphate induced nuclear translocation of β-catenin while the addition of TGF-β inhibited this translocation. Original magnification: 40x. Image is representative of three experiments. B) Quantification of β-catenin confocal immunofluorescence was performed with Image J software (a p<0.001 vs. all groups). C) With respect to control cells high phosphate decreased the expression of Dkk1 (b p<0.001) and Gsk3β (b p<0.001) while increased the expression of Lrp5 with respect to other groups (d p<0.001). These differences were also significant respect to TGF-β treated groups (c p<0.001 vs. TGF groups). TGF-β alone increased the expression of Dkk1 and Gsk3β (a p<0.001).