An antiproliferative BMP-2/PPARγ/apoE axis in human and murine SMCs and its role in pulmonary hypertension
J. Clin. Invest. Georg Hansmann, et al. 118:1846 doi:10.1172/JCI32503 [Go to this article.]

Figure 5
BMP-2 and the PPARγ agonist rosiglitazone induce apoE in PASMCs. (A) apoE protein expression in cell lysates (left) and apoE protein secretion in supernatant (right) induced by BMP-2 (10 ng/ml, 24 hours) and rosiglitazone (1 μM, 24 hours) were detected by immunoblotting as described in Methods (for cell lysates, densitometric values were corrected for equal loading using α-tubulin). For apoE secretion, the media of 3–4 cell culture flasks per condition were pooled and concentrated for the blots shown (representative of 2 independent experiments with similar results). (B) BMP-2–induced (10 ng/ml, 24 hours) upregulation of apoE in murine control PASMCs was reduced by half in PASMCs harvested from SM22α Cre PPARγ^flox/flox mice. PASMCs were isolated from 5 littermate control and 5 SM22α Cre PPARγ^flox/flox mice as described in Methods. PASMCs from each genotype were then pooled and subcultured prior to stimulation with BMP-2. The blot is representative of 2 independent experiments with similar results. For apoE protein levels in cell lysates (A), bars represent mean ± SEM (n = 3). *P < 0.05; **P < 0.01 versus control; unpaired 2-tailed t test.