Fig. 4.

Chronic hypoxia does not significantly increase VEGF expression. Western blot quantification of endogenous VEGF levels in arteries harvested from sheep acclimatized to chronic hypoxia for 110 days yielded values similar to those obtained in arteries harvested from normoxic control sheep. This result suggests that initial increases in VEGF levels (well documented) were not sustained chronically. Results are presented as means ± SE for n = 7 and 6 for normoxic and hypoxic arteries, respectively.