Lovastatin inhibits the angiogenesis and MLC phosphorylation of HUVECs <i>in vitro</i>.

<p>(A) HUVECs were pre-treated with various concentrations of lovastatin for 24 h. <i>In vitro</i> analysis of angiogenesis was carried out using capillary tube formation assay (upper panel; scale bar: 1 mm, ×4 objective) and transwell migration assay (lower panel; scale bar: 200 µm, ×20 objective). Note the dose-related decrease in the relative tube area and migrated cells. (B) Quantitative evaluation of the area covered by tubes (tube formation assay) and relative number of migrated cells (transwell assay) from (A). Data represent four independent experiments. (C) HUVECs were treated as in (A) and analyzed for phosphorylated and total MLC levels. β-actin was also probed as an internal control. Signal intensity of pMLC is expressed as percentage of control intensity ratio. n = 4. Data represent mean ± SEM. *, <i>p</i><0.05, **, <i>p</i><0.01, ***, <i>p</i><0.001 compared with unstimulated control.