Figure 3.

The knockdown of visfatin expression attenuates the senescence of human dental pulp cells (hDPCs). hDPCs were transfected with control siRNA or with visfatin siRNA for 48 h. (a) Transfected cell lysates were subjected to Western blotting to detect the levels of visfatin, p53, and p21 proteins. α-Tubulin was used as the loading control. (b–d) Densitometric analysis for assessing relative protein levels normalized with the levels of α-Tubulin protein: (b), visfatin; (c), p21; (d), p53. (e) Transfected cells were stained for detecting the activity of senescence-associated (SA)-β-galactosidase. Scale bar: 200 μm. (f) Quantification of the percentage of SA-β-galactosidase positively stained cells. ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.