Apoptosis in podocytes induced by TGF-β and Smad7
J. Clin. Invest. Mario Schiffer, et al. 108:807 doi:10.1172/JCI12367 [Go to this article.]

Figure 5
(a) Western blot demonstrates levels of Flag-Smad7 in podocytes maintained under permissive conditions. Adenoviral vectors containing either control LacZ or Flag-Smad7 cDNAs were used to infect cells at various moi’s, as indicated. (b) Histogram shows the normalized average numbers of apoptotic cells visualized by DAPI per hpf (in 50 hpf total) from a representative experiment. Podocyte cultures were infected with AdLacZ or AdSmad7 adenoviral vectors and left untreated or treated with TGF-β1 in the absence or presence of caspase-3 inhibitor zVAD-fmk. Results were normalized for cell density. (c) Relative enzymatic activity of caspase-3 measured as fluorochrome release at 460 nm in infected podocytes cultured under permissive conditions in the absence (–) or presence (+) of TGF-β1. Enzyme activity is normalized to uninfected podocytes (set at 1). (d) Histogram shows the normalized average numbers of apoptotic cells as detected by TUNEL assay per hpf (in 50 hpf total) from a representative experiment. Podocyte cultures were infected with AdLacZ or AdSmad7 adenoviral vectors and left untreated or treated with TGF-β in the presence of control mouse immunoglobulin (IgG) or panneutralizing anti–TGF-β1 antibody (2G7). Results were normalized for total cell density.