Fig. 7. Ex vivo acinar keratin mRNA expression after pretreatment with PDTC or Act-D. Isolated acini were incubated with medium±caerulein. The acini that were stimulated with caerulein were pre-incubated with 10, 25 or 50 µM of PDTC (A) or 0.5 or 2 µg/ml of Act-D (B) for 30 minutes followed by adding caerulein for 4 hours. The acinar cultures in B that did not include Act-D also included 0.1% DMSO (the solvent used for Act-D). Acini were then harvested and washed twice with PBS, followed by processing for real-time RT-PCR. L7 was used as internal control. The results represent mean±s.d. of three independent experiments. ^*P<0.01 vs. control; ^**P<0.01 vs. caerulein