Fig. 4.
PM2.5 reversibly induces cardiac fibrosis marker expression of mice. mRNA expressions of Col1a1 and Col3a1 in different age mice (a, b), 10-month-old mice withdrawal of PM2.5 exposure (e, f) and 4-week-old mice withdrawal of PM2.5 exposure (g, h) were detected by qPCR. Protein expressions of Col1a1 (c) and Col3a1 (d) in different age mice were measured by Western blot. GAPDH was used as the internal control. The mean expression in each treated group was shown as a fold change compared to the mean expression in each control group, which had been calculated as target gene or protein /GAPDH and ascribed an arbitrary value of 1. Each column and bar represents the mean ± SE (n = 6~ 9). *, P < 0.05 vs. age-matched control by two-way ANOVA and Turkey’s post hoc tests; #, P < 0.05 vs. 4-month-old PM2.5 group; d, P < 0.05 vs. 4-week-exposure; e, P < 0.05 vs. 1-week-restored group by two-way ANOVA and Bonferroni’s post hoc tests