Figure 2

Autophagy in human gingival fibroblasts treated with lipopolysaccharide (10 μg/mL). (A) mRNA levels of ATG12, and LC3 in control and LPS-treated fibroblasts. Statistical significance: *control versus LPS-treated HGF (P < 0.01) (B) Protein expression of Atg12 and LC3. Protein levels were determined by densitometric analysis of three different western blots and normalized to GADPH signal.*P < 0.01, between control and LPS-treated fibroblasts. (C) Representative images of autophagic markers (LC3, β-galactosidase) in control and LPS-treated fibroblasts that were visualized by immunofluorescence and light microscopy respectively, as described in Methods. Bar = 25 μm. Data represent the mean ± SD of three separate experiments. CTL: control; IOD: integrated optical intensity; LPS: lipopolysaccharide.