Fig. 5.

Potential inhibitors of elevated phosphate-induced myocardial hypertrophy. H9c2 myocardial cells were pretreated with potential inhibitors, namely CsA (calcineurin inhibitor), U0126 (ERK1/2 inhibitor), SB203580 (p38 MAPK inhibitor), and SP600125 (JNK1/2 inhibitor), for 1 h and subsequently underwent elevated phosphate treatment (1.4 mM) for 6 h. Cells cultured without pretreatment were used as a control. The effect of various inhibitors on elevated phosphate-induced myocardial hypertrophy was determined by the actin immunofluorescence assay. The relative cell size in response to different inhibitors was analyzed, where 30 cells were counted in each experiment, performed in triplicate. The results are expressed as the mean ± SE values of 3 experiments. ** p < 0.01 in comparison to the control; ^## p < 0.01 in comparison to phosphate treatment.