Fig. 4

Activation of RhoA and Rho-associated coiled-coil containing protein kinase (ROCK) by thrombin in porcine aortic endothelial cells (PAECs). a The levels of GTP-bound form of RhoA before and 3 min after stimulation with 1 unit/mL thrombin were summarized (n = 5). b, c Shown are the representative immunoblots and the summaries of the level of phosphorylation of MYPT1 at the ROCK site corresponding to T850 in human MYPT1 before and 3 min after stimulation with 1 unit/mL thrombin in the presence and absence of 10 µM simvastatin and 3 µM GGPP (b; n = 5), and 10 µM Y27632 and 1 µM H1152 (c; n = 5). PAECs were pretreated with simvastatin for 16 h in the presence or absence of GGPP, and with Y27632 or H1152 for 30 min, and then stimulated with thrombin in their presence, when pretreated (n = 5). The basal level of MYPT1 phosphorylation was assigned a value of 1. The data are expressed as the mean ± SEM. *P < 0.05 vs. thrombin, according to an ANOVA followed by Dunnett’s post hoc test. All original images of the immunoblot analyses are shown in Additional file 1: Figure S4