Figure 6.

Administration of rapamycin induced autophagy and attenuated the cardiac hypertrophy in miR-199a transgenic mice. Eight control mice were treated with vehicle or rapamycin (Rapa), five miR-199a Tg mice were treated with vehicle, and seven miR-199a Tg mice were treated with rapamycin. (a) The strategy of rapamycin administration. Rapamycin or vehicle treatment was started at 8 weeks of age and injected daily for 1 week. (b) Representative gross morphology (upper) and laminin immunostaining analyses (lower) of the hearts from control and miR-199a Tg mice treated with vehicle or rapamycin. The upper scale bar represents 5 mm, the lower scale bar represents 50 μm. (c) Heart weight to body weight or tibia length ratios of control and miR-199a Tg mice treated with vehicle or rapamycin. *P<0.05. (d) Quantification of relative cell cross-sectional area of cardiomyocytes of control and miR-199a Tg mice treated with vehicle or rapamycin (n=300). *P<0.05. (e) Western blotting analyses of GSK3β, p-mTOR, p-S6 and LC3B in control and miR-199a Tg mice treated with vehicle or rapamycin. GAPDH, glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase