Fig. 4.

Effect of furin inhibitors and siRNA on PRR cleavage induced by BSA in HK-2 cells. The cells were pretreated with α1-PDX (480 nM), furin inhibitor I (50 μM), or furin inhibitor II (25 μM) for 1 h or transfected with furin siRNA for 48 h and then treated with 20 mg/ml BSA for 24 h. The expression of fPRR and sPRR was determined by immunoblotting (A, C, and E; representative picture) coupled with corresponding densitometry analysis. B, D, and F: the concentrations of sPRR in the medium were measured by ELISA and normalized by protein content. *P < 0.05 vs. CTR; NS, nonsignificance vs. BSA. Data are means ± SD; n = 6/group. B, D, and F values are presented as the median (central line), interquartile range (box), and range (whiskers).