Fig. 6.

Effect of overexpression of vimentin on caspase-3 activity in PK-15 cells. PK-15 cells were transfected with pCAGGS-vimentin, encoding vimentin, then at 48 h post-transfection were infected with PCV2 at an MOI of 1. (A) PCV2-infected PK-15 cells were assayed for mRNA by real-time PCR at 24, 48, and 72 hpi. The relative level of caspase-3 was obtained by comparison with β-actin in the same sample. Data were analyzed by the 2^−ΔΔCT method with quadruplicate samples. (B) The cells were lysed at 24, 48, and 72 hpi, and caspase-3 was detected by caspase-3 activity kit according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Results are presented as the mean ± SD of data from three independent experiments. **, P < 0.05; ***, P < 0.01.