Fig. 4

The effect of signal inhibitors on stress fiber re-organization. a HBSMCs were not treated with inhibitor and (a) not-stretched or (b) stretched for 4 h, or were pre-incubated with 10 μM lipofectamine and 5 μg/ml of the C3 exoenzyme (c), 1 μM of Y-27632 (d) or 10 μM SP600125 (e) for 30 min followed by uni-axial stretching of the cells with 15 % elongation for 4 h. Actin stress fibers and nuclei were then stained and actin stress fiber angles relative to the direction of stretching were determined as in Fig. 3. The scale bar in pictures indicates 20 μm. b Quantification of the effect of the inhibitors on stress fiber reorganization induced by uni-axial stretch. The angles of an average of 5 actin stress fibers in a cell were counted (n = 50 cells for each condition). Data are expressed as the median ± interquartile. The effects of inhibitors were compared with cells not treated with inhibitors. An * indicates p < 0.05