Fig. 6
mRNAs expression levels affected by cholesterol loading in rat aortic smooth muscle cells. Relative expression levels of HMGCR, CD68, SM22, MCP-1 (a), Hey2, Hes1, Dll4 and Jag1 (b) in RASMCs treated with 20 (CHOL20), 50 (CHOL50) and 100 (CHOL100) μg/ml of cholesterol for 72 h. Relative changes in mRNA expression levels were calculated according to the ΔΔCt method. Results are expressed as mean ± SEM of three independent experiments, each performed in triplicate. ****P < 0.0001, ***P < 0.001, **P < 0.01 and *P < 0.05, significantly different from the control (CTRL)