Silencing TUFM Inhibits Development of Monocrotaline-Induced Pulmonary Hypertension by Regulating Mitochondrial Autophagy via AMPK/mTOR Signal Pathway

Figure 4

Hypoxia induced the overexpression of TUFM, and the silence of TUFM decreased the mitophagy of smooth muscle cells under hypoxia condition. (a) TUFM expression in smooth muscle cells under normoxia and hypoxia conditions. (b) Schematic representation of the quantitative expression of TUFM protein. (c) TUFM, LC3 II/I, BECN1, and P62 expression in hypoxia of each group. (d–g) Densitometry data represent the intensity of each group. (h) Autophagy of pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells collected by transmission electron microscopy in each group. Scale bar: 2 μm. Ctrl: control; Hyp: hypoxia; Ctrl-NC: control+empty vehicle; Hyp-NC: hypoxia+empty vehicle; OE-NC: negative control of TUFM overexpression; OE: overexpression of TUFM; Si-NC: small inference RNA of TUFM negative control; SiRNA: small inference RNA of TUFM. Data is presented as , , , and .

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