Research Paper Volume 13, Issue 4 pp 6025—6040

Figure 4. The impact of SIRT6 overexpression on telomerase activity and fibrosis-related protein expression is reversed by hTERT knockdown. LFH cells were infected using lentiviral vectors encoding SIRT6 (pSIRT6), an hTERT-specific shRNA (sh-hTERT), or a control shRNA, after which Western blotting was used to assess the expression of SIRT6 in these cells (A, B), with α-tubulin being used for normalization. (C) Telomerase activity in ligamentum flavum cells treated as indicated was assessed based upon optical density. (D, E) TGF-β1, α-SMA, and collagen I protein levels were analyzed by western blotting, with β-actin being used for normalization. Data are means ± SD of three replicates. *p<0.05, vs. non-infection control. ##p<0.01 vs. pSIRT6- and control shRNA-transduced cells (pSIRT6+shRNA control).