Cardiac corin overexpression modulates activity and expression level of pro-apoptotic and anti-apoptotic proteins in the infarcted heart. (A) Expression and phosphorylation of Akt (Ser473) and Bad (Ser136) were assessed by Western-blotting under reduced conditions in post-MI tissues from corin-Tg and WT hearts. Actin was used as loading control. (B,C) Densitometry analysis of the pAkt (60 kD) and pBad (23 kD) normalized to Akt (60 kD) and Bad (25 kD), respectively. (D) Expression of Bcl-2 family proteins, Bcl2, Bax, Bcl-xl, and Bak in corin-Tg and WT hearts post-MI. Cardiac corin (206 kD) overexpression was also confirmed. (E) Densitometry analysis of Bcl2 (26 kD), Bax (23 kD), Bcl-xl (30 kD), and Bak (30 kD) expression normalized to actin (43 kD) and, of the Bax/Bcl2 ratio. Heart tissue extracts were prepared as described in Figure 3. Data represent means ± SE of n = 3-4 mice per group. * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001 and ns, not significant.