Figure 12. Representative western blots showing an upregulation in iNOS levels 48-D^ΔNΔC infection in pregnant sheep UAECs.

Pregnant sheep UAECs were grown in culture for upto 4 passages, and then infected at increasing MOIs with Ad.VEGF-D^ΔNΔC or Ad.LacZ in 6-well plates. Protein was extracted from infected cells 48 hours later, and assayed for iNOS levels by western blotting. (A) A dramatic increase in iNOS levels with increasing MOI was observed in Ad.VEGF-D^ΔNΔC infected cells, but not Ad.LacZ infected cells. (B) Densitometric analysis was performed on the iNOS bands using Image J software, after normalizing against the density of GAPDH bands. Results are representative of n = 3 independent experiments. * indicates p<0.05 in comparison to the relative density of the corresponding band from uninfected cells (MOI = 0) by t-test.