Advanced Glycation End Products Induce Proliferation and Migration of Human Aortic Smooth Muscle Cells through PI3K/AKT Pathway

Figure 5

RAGE mediated activation of PI3K/AKT signaling pathway. (a) Effect of AGEs on the expression of RAGE ( in each group). (b) Images showing HASMCs infected with empty vector lentivirus (AGEs+NC) and lentivirus-RAGE-RNAi (AGEs+RAGE(-), NC means negative control); upper: brightfield, lower: fluorescence imaging of GFP expression. Magnification: 20-fold. (c) RAGE expression was detected by western blotting after RAGE-RNAi lentivirus transfection ( in each group). (d) The expression of phosphorylate AKT and total AKT levels in HASMCs after RAGE-RNAi lentivirus transfection ( in each group). (e, f) The expression of PCNA, Cyclin-D1, MMP-9, and MMP-2 in HASMCs after RAGE-RNAi lentivirus transfection ( in each group). GAPDH was used as a loading control, was defined as significant difference compared with the control, and was defined as significant difference compared with the AGEs+negative control.

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