H2 relaxin abrogates TGF-β1-induced suppression of iNOS expression in renal myofibroblasts.

<p>(A) A representative Western blot of iNOS expression in response to increasing concentrations of exogenous TGF-β1 administration (1–10 ng/ml) to rat renal myofibroblasts. (B) A representative Western blot of iNOS expression in untreated, relaxin alone (100 ng/ml)-treated, relaxin (100 ng/ml) plus TGF-β1 (5 ng/ml)-treated and TGF-β1 (5 ng/ml) alone-treated renal myofibroblasts after 72 hours. Additional blots of α-tubulin (A,B) demonstrate the quality and equivalent loading of protein samples. Also shown are the mean ± SE levels of iNOS expression, as determined by densitometry scanning (from 3–5 separate experiments conducted in duplicate); and expressed as relative values to those of the untreated group, which was expressed as 1 in each case. **p&lt;0.01 vs untreated cells; ##p&lt;0.01 vs H2 relaxin alone-treated cells; ¶¶p&lt;0.01 vs H2 relaxin+TGF-β1-treated cells.