Figure 4.

Cell Aggregation and Reversal to Keratocytes Promoted by HC-HA/PTX3 Is Mediated by SDF1-CXCR4 Signaling and BMP Signaling. Passage 3 HCF were pre-treated for 30 minutes before seeding and continuously culturing on plastic with or without immobilized HA or HC-HA/PTX3 for 7 days with or without AMD3100 or SB431542 (A, bar =100 µm). Cells were harvested at Day 1 for quantitative RT-PCR using the expression level on plastic set as 1 (B, *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001, n = 3) and for immunofluorescence staining (C, nuclear staining by Hoechst 33342, Bar = 100 µm) and at Day 2 for Western blot using β-actin or histone as the loading control for total or nuclear extract, respectively (D).