MARCKS protein expression is increased in the mouse aorta after stimulation by transmural mechanical injury.

<p><b>A. The infrarenal mouse aorta was exposed to blunt transmural injury B.</b> The injury resulted in a 344% increase of MARCKS expression after three days. <b>C.</b> MARCKS expression returned to baseline one month after injury. The mechanical injury also resulted in a decrease in total p27^kip1 expression in the injured aortas, which also returned to baseline after 30 days. <b>D.</b> At the time of surgery, the injured infrarenal aorta was treated with 10 μM MARCKS siRNA or 10 μM non-targeting, control siRNA suspended in 30% Pluronic F-127 gel. The animals were euthanized three days after surgery and knockdown of both mRNA and protein was assessed. MARCKS protein was not detected three days after transfection. <b>E.</b> Three days after injury MARCKS siRNA significantly decreased MARCKS mRNA by 42±15%. Statistical significance was determined by the two-tailed Student’s <i>t</i>-test. *denotes <i>p</i><0.05, n = 6.