Fig 4. TSP1 treatment induced human podocyte apoptosis through activation of CD36-dependent p38 MAPK pathway.

(A). Human podocytes were treated with different concentration of TSP1 (0.1, 1, and 5μg/ml) in the presence or absence of anti-CD36 antibody (15 μg/ml) for 15 minutes. Then phospho-p38MAPK level in cell lysates was determined by immunoblotting and normalized to total p38 levels. (B) Human podocytes were pre-incubated with SB202190 (p38 inhibitor, at 10⁻⁵ mol/L) and anti-CD36 antibody (15 μg/ml) for 2 h and then treated with TSP1 (5μg/ml) for 24 hours. Cells were then stained with TUNEL to calculate apoptotic cells. Data are presented as mean ± SE (n = 3 individual experiments). ***, P <0.001 vs. Ctrl; ##, P<0.01 vs.TSP1; ###, P<0.001 vs. TSP1 (5).