Figure 5.

Colchicine reverses the downregulation of various antioxidant enzymes and promotes the activation of AMPK-SIRT1 signaling in endothelial cells. HUVECs were treated for 24 h with different doses of colchicine (0–10 nM) in the presence of cholesterol crystal (0.5 mg/ml) or were left untreated (control). (a) Western blotting was dedicated to examine the protein expression levels of SIRT1, p-AMPKα, AMPKα, HO-1, SOD-2, and SOD-1. (b–f) Quantitative analysis of AMPK/SIRT1 pathway-associated protein expression. Data was expressed as the mean ± SD of three separate experiments. ^∗P < 0.05, ^∗∗P < 0.01 vs. the control group. ^#P < 0.05, ^##P < 0.01, and ^###P < 0.001 vs. the cholesterol crystal group.