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. 2018 Aug 15;198(4):486–496. doi: 10.1164/rccm.201709-1823OC

Figure 2.

Figure 2.

Stiffness increases miR-29 (microRNA-29) expression in two-dimensional hydrogels. Primary lung fibroblasts were cultured for 24 hours in survival medium on gels mimicking physiological stiffness (3 kPa; soft polyacrylamide gels) or gels mimicking idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis stiffness (20 kPa; stiff polyacrylamide gels). Gels were functionalized with either: (A) type I collagen (n = 3 cell lines); (B) type III collagen (n = 3 cell lines); (C) fibronectin (n = 3 cell lines); or (D) an equal ratio of type I collagen, type III collagen, and fibronectin (n = 6 cell lines). Shown is a box-and-whisker plot of the mean quantitative PCR values on stiff hydrogels compared with soft (set to 1) for miR-29a, -29b, and -29c (normalized to RNU6 expression). P values were calculated using the Student’s paired two-tailed t test. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001.