Figure 5. Vaginal fibroblasts show transient differentiation to myofibroblasts in vitro.

Cell lysates were collected at different time points (0, 3 and 5 weeks) and myofibroblast differentiation was detected by western immunoblotting of α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) and β-actin was used as a control. Cells originated from three groups: (A) controls, (B) prolapsed premenopausal (POP-pre), and (C) prolapsed postmenopausal (POP-post). Samples derived from the same experiment were processed in gels in parallel. Blots were quantified by densiometry analysis of the bands and data was normalised to the first band of β-actin per blot. The box plots correspond to five samples per time point per group. **p < 0.01 by Kruskal-Wallis test followed by Dunn’s multiple comparison. Week 3 vs. week 4: control, p = 0.0056; POP-pre, p = 0.0066; POP-post, p = 0.0044 No differences were found between the study groups. Full-length blots are presented in Supplementary Figure S2.