circHECTD1 promotes the silica-induced pulmonary endothelial–mesenchymal transition via HECTD1

a Representative images of Sirius red staining in lung sections show the amount of Sirius red-stained collagen associated that co-localized with Tie2-GFP in mice treated with SiO2. b Representative images of immunohistochemical staining show the co-localization of TEK-GFP with α-SMA/Acta2 in TEK-GFP 287 Sato/JNju mice treated with SiO2, indicating that SiO2 induced the EndMT. c Representative western blot showing the effects of SiO2 (50？μg/cm2) on levels of the mesenchymal markers Col I/COL1A1, Col III/COL3A1 and α-SMA/Acta2. d Densitometric analyses of five separate experiments show that SiO2 increases Col I/COL1A1, Col III/COL3A1 and α-SMA/Acta2 expression in a time-dependent manner. *P？<？0.05 vs. the expression of the corresponding protein at 0？h. e Representative western blot showing the effects of SiO2 (50？μg/cm2) on levels of the endothelial markers VE-Cad/Cdh-5 and PECAM 1/CD31. f Densitometric analyses of five separate experiments show that SiO2 decreases VE-Cad/Cdh-5 and PECAM 1/CD31 expression in a time-dependent manner. *P？<？0.05 vs. corresponding protein at 0？