Figure 4. Recombinant angiogenin activates HSCs and angiogenin depletion from conditioned medium reduces HSC activation.

A, Primary murine HSCs were exposure to recombinant angiogenin (rANG, 1 μg/ml) for several days (0 to 3) and phenotypic transformation was detected by changes in α-SMA, PCNA, CtsB or MMP9 expression at day 7. B, Angiogenin protein (up) and mRNA (down) levels of HepG2 cells stably transfected with shRNA control (shCTRL) or against angiogenin (shANG). C, α-SMA protein expression in HSCs after 4 or 5 days of exposure to control medium (-) or conditioned medium from HepG2 cells with shCTRL or shANG transfection. D, α−SMA protein expression after HSC treatment (day 7) with control medium (−), CM-HepG2 (CM) and CM-HepG2 where angiogenin content was previously depleted by immunoprecipitation (CM+Ab), as denoted by angiogenin detection in agarose beads.