miR-21 Reduces Hydrogen Peroxide-Induced Apoptosis in c-kit⁺ Cardiac Stem Cells In Vitro through PTEN/PI3K/Akt Signaling

Figure 3

miR-21’s effect on apoptosis related proteins in CSCs. Cultured CSCs were treated with miR-21 mimics, inhibitor, or scrambles for 48 h or challenged by 100 μM H₂O₂ for 2 h at the same time. (a) c-kit⁺ CSCs were triple stained by c-kit (green), caspase (orange), and DAPI (blue) and observed under a fluorescence microscope (Olympus, Japan). Bar = 50 μm. PI: propidium iodide. (b) miR-21 mimics’ influences on Bax, Bcl-2, and caspase-3 detected with immune blotting. (c) Statistics of the relative expression level of proteins in (b). miR-21 mimics increased the expression of Bcl-2 and decreased Bax and caspase-3 compared with H₂O₂. compared with control; compared with H₂O₂ group, .

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