Research Paper Volume 13, Issue 13 pp 16938—16956

Figure 5. Differentially aged decellularized cECM promotes altered gene expression patterns in macrophage populations. (A) Fold change qRT-PCR results of pro- (Nos2, Tnfa) and anti-inflammatory (Tgfb, Arg) gene expression in RNA isolated from whole heart tissue lysates isolated from either young (1 month), moderately aged (8 months) or advanced age (18-21 month) C57/Bl6 mice (n=3-5). (B) Heatmap of qRT-PCR results for pro- and anti-inflammatory gene expression in macrophages isolated from young mice (8-16 week) cultured on tissue culture plastic coated with either young(Y, 8-16 week) or aged(A, 18-21 month) cECM with either no supplemental cytokine treatment (M0, YM0, AM0), Th1 cytokine treatment (M1, YM1, AM1), or Th2 cytokine treatment (M2, YM2, AM2) (n=4). Significant effects are noted below heatmap in boxplots with data reported as mean values with boxes representing 25%/75% of mean. Error bars represent standard deviation. Significance was assessed using a Kruskal-Wallis 1-way ANOVA with post-hoc pairwise comparisons. * p<0.05.