Skip to main content
. 2014 Apr 2;9(4):e93449. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0093449

Figure 1. ACE2 activity and protein levels are increased in dystrophic skeletal muscle.

Figure 1

(A) ACE2 activity of wt and mdx muscle extracts from TA, GAST and DIA. Cleavage rate is expressed as percentage of relative fluorescence units per minute normalized to total protein (%RFU/min*μg protein). Activity of each wt muscle was set as 100%, ANOVA *p<0.05 vs. wt muscle. (B) ACE2 activity of wt TA muscle was set as 100% and compared among all muscles analyzed. Significance between wt GAST and DIA, ANOVA *p<0.05. Significance between mdx GAST and mdx TA, ANOVA **p<0.05. mdx DIA had the greatest activity of all analyzed muscles, ANOVA ***p<0.01. Data are presented as mean ± standard error. TA wt n = 8, mdx n = 15; GAST wt n = 7, mdx n = 10; DIA wt n = 9, mdx n = 13. (C) Wt (lanes 1–4) and mdx (lanes 5–8) muscle extracts were analyzed by western blotting to detect ACE2, fibronectin, and GAPDH (loading control). Molecular weight standards are shown on the right. (D) Levels of ACE2 and fibronectin were quantified using relative expression compared with wt; data are mean ± standard error. ANOVA * p<0.001 wt vs. mdx.