Fig. 4

Matrix metalloproteinase production by human CHQ myoblasts: modulation of HGF-enhanced ECM-driven migration by MMP inhibition. a depicts MMP activity detected by gelatin zymography. Increasing doses of HGF (1 to 100 ng/mL) were added to CHQ myoblast cultures for 4 h. Supernatants were submitted to electrophoresis in gels co-polymerized with gelatin. The Pro-MMP-2 (72KDa) induced gelatin degradation, being visualized as clear bands. The ratio between treated and non-treated cultures was determined by band densitometry using ImageJ software. b Effect of MMP2/9 inhibitor on migration in the presence of laminin-111 (LN) or fibronectin (FN) without or with HGF. The MMP-2/MMP9 inhibitor significantly blocked the HGF-induced migration driven by both LN and FN. In this migration experiment, we detached the migrated cells with trypsin and counted the cells in a malassez chamber, giving the total number of migrated cells. Bars represent means ± SE from 3 independent experiments. ***p < 0.001