Role of BRCA1-associated protein (BRAP) variant in childhood pulmonary arterial hypertension
Fig 4
Knockdown of BRAP induced increasing p53 and p21 expression in the nucleus in hPASMCs.
A, Relative abundance of mRNA transcripts for p53, p21, BAX, and MDM2 in hPASMCs. The total RNA was extracted 3 days after siRNA transfection. Expression was normalized to NC and represented as a fold change relative to β-actin (n = 3, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01). NC, negative control; siCP, nontargeting siRNA. B, Western blotting of BRAP, p53, phosphorylated-p53, p21, BAX, pro-caspase3, and MDM2 expression. Cell lysates were collected 2 days after siRNA transfection in hPASMCs. The immunoblots also showed the level of siBRAP knockdown with SF2/ASF and β-actin as loading control. C, Extents of phosphorylation of p53 were shown relative to p53. Data represent mean values from 3 independent experiments. The means were compared with that of BRAP siRNA using one-way ANOVA followed by Dunnett’s test (*p < 0.05).