Figure 2.

LNA-anti-miR-132 delivery in mice

(A) C57BL/6 male mice (n = 8) were injected either with LNA-scrambled control or LNA-anti-miR-132 (15 mg/kg) or saline intraperitoneally (i.p.) as shown. Some mice received either corn oil or CCl₄ (i.p.; 0.6 mL/kg of body weight) for indicated times. (B and C) RNA isolated from the liver was used to determine miR-132 and miR-212 expression by quantitative real-time PCR using TaqMan microRNA assay. SnoRNA-202 was used as internal control. (D) Sirius Red staining of paraffin-embedded liver sections. Left panel depicts representative slides observed under light microscopy (100×), and the right panel shows ImageJ quantification of the stained area. (E) RNA isolated from the liver was used to determine the expression levels of collagen1α, TIMP1, and TGFβ. (F) 20 μg of whole liver lysate protein was used to determine α smooth muscle actin expression by western blot (left panel). β actin was used as a loading control. Densitometry units are shown as fold change compared to oil-saline-treated mice after normalization (lower panel). Data represent mean ± SEM. Mann-Whitney test or one-way ANOVA was employed for statistical analysis. ∗p < 0.05 compared to oil-scrambled control-treated mice. ∗∗p < 0.005, ∗∗∗p < 0.0005, ∗∗∗∗p < 0.0001. #p < 0.05 compared to LNA-scrambled control-treated mice after CCl₄ treatment.