Figure 7. Rtn1a knockdown before UUO mitigates fibrosis and ER stress in vivo.

(a) CAGs;Rtn1a^siRNA (shRNA) and CAGs;Luc^siRNA (WT) mice were fed with DOX for 3 weeks before the surgery. Mice were killed 10 days after the UUO or sham-operation (Ctl) and kidneys were removed for H&E, Masson's trichrome (MTC) and Picrosirius red staining. The representative pictures are shown, n=6. (b) The quantitation data of Picrosirius red staining was shown, *P<0.01 compared with respective control mice, ^#P<0.05 compared with WT-UUO mice, n=6. (c–e) Kidney cortices of these mice were used for protein and RNA isolation. Western blots (c) and qPCR (e) were performed to analyse expression of Rtn1a and ER stress markers in the kidney of these mice. Western blots were analysed by densitometry (d). *P<0.05 compared with WT-Ctl, ^#P<0.05 compared with WT-UUO, n=6. Each qPCR experiment was performed in triplicates. The data were expressed as mean±s.d. The ANOVA with Bonferroni correction was used.