Figure 1

Gene silencing of STAT-3 and its effect on cell proliferation. (A) Gene silencing of STAT-3. VSMCs were cultured and transfected with 2 μg STAT-3 siRNA (siSTAT-3) or scramble siRNA (Scramble) using lipofectamine 2000 as described in the Material & Methods. 72 hrs after transfection, cells were collected to extract RNA. STAT-3 gene expression was detected by RT-PCR. β-actin was used as an internal control. Control was cells without transfection. The intensity of band was measured. The relative target gene expression was calculated versus β-actin. (B) siRNA effect on the morphology feature of VMSCs. VMSCs were transfected as above.72 hrs after transfection, cells were submitted to take picture under microscope.(a) cells were not transfected; (b) cells were transfected with scramble siRNA; (c) cells were transfected with STAT-3 siRNA. (C) Cell proliferation. VMSCs were transfected as above. 72 hrs after transfection, cells were used to perform MTT Assay as described in the Material & Methods. Data are representative of three independent experiments.*Different from cells treated with control siRNA or wild type (WT) VSMCs (* p < 0.05, student t-test).