Skip to main content
. 2019 Dec 7;20(24):6189. doi: 10.3390/ijms20246189

Figure 5.

Figure 5

Gene and protein expression of vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-3 (VEGFR-3)/Flt-4 and neuropilin-2 (NRP-2) in dermal lymphatic microvascular endothelial cells (LMVECs) is significantly decreased by conditioning with systemic sclerosis (SSc) serum. LMVECs were treated for 48 h with sera from healthy controls (n = 8) or from patients with early diffuse cutaneous SSc (n = 8). Quantification of VEGFR3/FLT4 and NRP2 gene expression by real-time reverse transcription PCR is reported in the histograms. Gene expression levels in LMVECs treated with healthy serum were set to 1; the other results are normalized to this value. The reference gene used was 18S ribosomal RNA. Bars represent the mean ± SEM values of triplicate determinations from each one of the three LMVEC lines. * p < 0.001 vs. healthy serum (unpaired Student’s t-test). Representative immunoblots of VEGFR-3/Flt-4 and NRP-2 proteins are shown at the bottom; α-tubulin was measured as a loading control.