Figure 1.

Western blot analysis of SMAD phosphorylation in fibroblasts. Control or FOP PLF were cultured for 1 hr with 50 ng/ml Activin‐A. Whole cell lysates were used for western blot analysis for pSMAD3, actin was used as the loading control (only one of the two gels analyzed is shown) (a). Activin‐A upregulates Smad3 phosphorylation in both control and FOP cells (b). Control n = 4, FOP n = 6. (Wilcoxon matched‐pairs signed rank test, *p ≤ 0.05, ***p ≤ 0.001). FOP: fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva; PLF: periodontal ligament fibroblasts; SMAD: mothers against decapentaplegic homolog 3 [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]