Figure 4

Effects of hypoxia on the steady state levels of specific genes in normal peritoneal fibroblasts. Normal peritoneal fibroblasts were cultured for 24 h in normoxic and hypoxic conditions and total RNA from cells were examined to determine the steady state levels of specific transcripts as described in Methods. Complementary DNA for all genes was amplified at 26 PCR cycles. Histogram showing mean and standard errors of mean of optical densities of amplicons representing specific mRNA species (x axis) from control (empty bars) or hypoxia exposed cells (shaded bars) from 3 patients. The RT-PCR experiments were conducted twice to obtain OD values of six amplicons from normoxic or hypoxic fibroblasts for statistical analysis. Images of gels with amplicons from cells treated with hypoxia are not shown. * Significantly different from control conditions at p < 0.05.