Research Paper Volume 16, Issue 11 pp 9876—9898
High estrogen induces trans-differentiation of vascular smooth muscle cells to a macrophage-like phenotype resulting in aortic inflammation via inhibiting VHL/HIF1a/KLF4 axis
Figure 3. E2 induces transformation of VSMCs into a macrophage-like phenotype in mice and TAM has protective effect on blood vessels. (A) The paraffin sections of abdominal aorta were stained with ACTA2 (green) and CD68 (red). Magnification 630×. (B, C) The whole aortic tissue was lysed, and western blot analysis was performed to analyze the protein levels of KLF4, CD68 and ACTA2 (n = 4). *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ****P < 0.0001, indicating statistically significant data between groups.