Figure 5.

Influence of Smad3 on the balance of Smad1 C-terminal and linker phosphorylation. Effects of overexpression of constitutively active form of Smad3 (ca) on the modulation of Smad1 and Smad3 signaling pathways in BSA- or AGE-treated MCs. (a) After the transfection and successive 48 h of incubation, MCs were treated with BSA or AGE for 48 h. Equal amounts of cell lysates were subjected to western blotting. GAPDH was used as a loading control. Data are representative of at least three independent experiments. (b) Optical densitometry of these proteins in western blot was shown. The values are expressed as the mean ± S.E. (NS, not significant, *p < 0.05, t test). ctl, empty vector; ca, constitutively active form of Smad3. Uncropped scans are presented in Supplementary Fig. S8.