Fig. 1

Certain amino acids and hormones trigger GRP78 expression. a Microscopic morphologyof the purified cells. Scale bar: 75 μm. b Detection of CK18 in BMECs. CK18 (green), DAPI (blue), scale bar: 25 μm.c Subcellular localization of GRP78 in cells treated with the essential amino acids Met and Leu and the hormones estrogen (e) or prolactin (PRL). Nuclei (blue), GRP78(red), scale bar: 10 μm. d AIOD of GRP78 expression per cell from (b) was analyzed using ImageJ. Ten cells were analyzed per sample. The AIOD of the control was set as 1.00 for clarity. e The protein levels of GRP78 and β-casein in the cells were determined using western blotting after treatments with methionine (Met), leucine (Leu), estrogen (e) or prolactin (PRL); β-actin served as the loading control. f The relative fold changes in the protein levels of GRP78 (protein/β-actin) in (e) were quantified with grayscale scanning. The data represent the means±SE from three independent experiments. Values with different superscripted lowercase letters indicate significant difference (p < 0.05)