Fig. 2. Effects of cholesterol, LDL, statins, -CD and nystatin on TGF-1-induced PAI-1 expression in Mv1Lu cells (A,C,E,F,G,H) and BAECs (B,D). Cells were treated with increasing concentrations of cholesterol as indicated (A,B), 50 µg/ml cholesterol (C,D,E), 50 µg/ml LDL (E), -CD (0.5%; H) or nystatin (25 µg/ml; H) at 37°C for 1 hour or with 1 µM fluvastatin or lovastatin (F,G) or with different concentrations of fluvastatin (G) at 37°C for 16 hours and then further incubated with increasing concentrations (as indicated) of TGF-1 (C,D) or 50 pM TGF-1 (A,B,E,G,H) for 2 hours. Northern blot analyses of PAI-1 and G3PDH were performed and a representative of a total of three analyses per experiment is shown (a). The relative amounts of the transcripts (PAI-1 and G3PDH) were quantified with a PhosphoImager. The ratio of the relative amounts of PAI-1 and G3PDH transcripts in cells treated without TGF-1 and cholesterol, LDL or statins on the blot was taken as 1 fold or 100% of PAI-1 expression. The quantitative data from three independent analyses was shown (b). The data are mean ± s.d. ^*Significantly lower than that of control P<0.001.