Figure 1.

Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) challenge elevated transforming growth factor‐β (TGF‐β), angiotensinogen (AGT) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression in podocytes. (a) TGF‐β, AGT and VEGF expression was significantly elevated at messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) level after 2–4 h of LPS stimulation (P < 0.05). (b) TGF‐β and AGT protein expression was increased after 2–4 h of LPS challenge, simultaneously (P < 0.05). Therefore, we took the stimulation time of 4 h as the subsequent stimulus duration. Expression levels were normalized to β‐actin and the error bars represented standard deviations, which were calculated from three parallel experiments. *P < 0.05.