Figure 6.

Decorin expression in human breast stromal fibroblasts is autophagy-induced. (A) Young (Y) and ionizing radiation-induced senescent (IS) human breast stromal fibroblasts were treated with 500 nM of the autophagy activator rapamycin or 30 μM of the autophagy inhibitor chloroquine for 24 h before RNA extraction and RT-qPCR analysis for decorin (dcn) expression (A) or VEGF expression (B). Glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) was used as the reference gene. Ratios of gene expression levels of treated cells to those of the respective untreated control are shown as mean values ± standard deviations of four and three independent experiments for (A,B), respectively. Asterisks (*) pinpoint statistically significant differences in comparison to the respective untreated control (Student’s t test, p < 0.05).