Fig. 2

Critical period of mifepristone treatment for augmenting the adiponectin expression during adipocyte differentiation in 3T3-L1 cells. A Experimental protocols used to determine the critical period of treatment with 1 µM mifepristone (solid lines) for augmenting the expression of adiponectin during adipogenesis. Confluent 3T3-L1 cells were subjected to adipocyte differentiation as described in the Materials and Methods. The dotted lines indicate the period of vehicle treatment. B Summary (n = 6) of the qRT-PCR analysis of the expression of adiponectin, Fabp4, and PPARγ2 mRNA on day 10. The level of each transcript was normalized to that of 18S rRNA, and the value obtained with protocol 1 was assigned a value of 1. C Representative immunoblot (IB) images and summary (n = 4) of the expression of adiponectin and Fabp4 proteins on day 10. The levels of adiponectin and the Fabp4 expression were normalized by those of Rac1, and then expressed as the fold increase from the values obtained with protocol 1. All data represent the mean ± S.E.M. *, P < 0.05; **, P < 0.01 vs. values obtained with protocol 1 (vehicle alone)