Figure 4.

Representative gelatin zymography and densitometric analysis of MMP-2 and MMP-9 gelatinase activity in vaginal tissues of women with severe POP (white bar) and control asymptomatic women (black bar) in the proliferative (A) and secretory (B) phase of the menstrual cycle. MMP-2 activity is observed predominantly at 68 kDa (latent pro-form) and 62 kDa (active form); MMP-9 activity is detected at 92 kDa (latent pro-form), and 87 kDa (active form). The results shown are the mean density of MMP-2 and MMP-9 ± S.E.M. “L” represents protein ladder, “(+)” represents positive control (human decidual conditioned media). A significant difference is indicated by * (p<0.05). Protein samples from 13 POP patients and 14 controls were analyzed.