Figure 6.

Exogenous rED-A reduces collagen lattice contraction and α-SMA expression. (A) rED-A (300 μg/ml) reduced LFs contraction and contraction of TGFβ-treated (10 ng/ml) LFs and SCFs in serum-free conditions. (B) Cell lysates from collagen lattices were immunoblotted against α-SMA and total actin. α-SMA band densities were quantified by image analysis and normalized to total actin measured in the same blot. Changes in α-SMA expression correlated with lattice contraction, whereas total actin remained unchanged in all conditions tested. Each bar represents mean values (±SD) of five independent experiments performed with five lattices per condition, respectively. *p ≤ 0.005, **p ≤ 0.001, ns = not significant, compared with the respective control for each cell type or for selected pairs.