Figure 5.

The effect of MPO on mRNA expression and collagen production in mammary fibroblasts isolated from women with high and low mammographic density. Messenger RNA expression of cancer-associated genes (A) and genes involved in extracellular matrix regulation and collagen production (B) measured by RT-PCR in human mammary fibroblasts from women with high (n = 7) and low (n = 9) mammographic density following treatment with 5 μg/mL of MPO for 72 h. mRNA expression normalised to HPRT1 expression and presented as relative expression where the average for untreated control is 1. Collagen production was measured using collagen 1 ELISA (C) and insoluble collagen measured by sirius red staining (D). Data presented as mean + SEM with statistical analysis performed using a linear mixed-effects model Tukey’s post hoc comparison.