Figure 7.

The effect of high glucose and tryptophanol or halofuginone on mesothelial cell apoptosis and mesothelial to mesenchymal transition. Mesothelial cells were cultured under normal or high-glucose conditions, with or without halofuginone or tryptophanol. Apoptosis was assessed by the level of activated cleaved caspase-3, and MMT by the level of α-SMA with Western blotting. Nine experiments were performed for each GCN-2 kinase activator; three of them are depicted in panels (A) and (D). High-glucose conditions induced apoptosis (B,E), while both halofuginone (B) and tryptophanol (E) prevented apoptosis. High-glucose conditions caused MMT (C,F), while both halofuginone (C) and tryptophanol (F) prevented MMT, the latter to a lesser extent than halofuginone. *, #, +, and ^ indicate p < 0.05 compared to first, second, third, or fourth depicted conditions. Error bars correspond to standard error of means. The number inside each bar corresponds to the mean fold-change compared to the control.