Figure 1.

Quantitative correlation between silicone wrinkling fibroblasts and α-SMA expression. (A) The percentage of SCFs and LFs producing wrinkles on silicone substrates is compared with the percentage of α-SMA–positive fibroblasts grown on plastic culture dishes. Expression of α-SMA is further demonstrated by Western blotting, equilibrated for total actin (lanes correspond to columns above). (B) The percentage of α-SMA–positive fibroblasts was evaluated on silicone in which wrinkles were preserved after fixation. The low percentage of wrinkling SCFs compared with LFs was significantly enhanced by TGFβ1 (10 ng/ml). In all cases α-SMA expression correlated with the wrinkling activity. Ninety percent of all silicone-wrinkling fibroblasts were α-SMA positive, independent on cell type or condition. Bars, SD of mean values, calculated from five independent experiments. *p ≤ 0.005, **p ≤ 0.001, compared with control SCFs.