Fig. 5.

Effect of silencing candidate genes on endothelial sprouting in prolonged hypoxia and normoxia. hMVECs were precultured at 1 % oxygen (a) or 20 % oxygen (b) and silenced with one of the 13 genes selected from the screening. hMVECs were seeded on top of fibrin matrices before transfection with si-RNA. Subsequently, the hMVECs were stimulated with the combination of VEGF-A and TNFα. Tube length of hMVECs 7 days after stimulation with VEGF-A/TNFα was quantified by using Optimas software and expressed percentage of Scrambled with SEM (n = 3 independent donors, each in triplicate). The genes that were upregulated in prolonged hypoxia are expressed as black bars, and the genes that were downregulated in prolonged hypoxia are expressed as white bars. For statistical analysis, one-way ANOVA with Bonferroni post hoc test was used