Figure 4

Changes in Hepatic Oxygen Saturation and Hypoxia-related Protein Expression. (A) In the representative case, the hepatic oxygen saturation in the experimental group was lower than that in the control group at four, six, and eight weeks (51.6 vs. 54.5%, 48.4 vs. 53.9%, 32.3 vs. 43.2%, and 31.2 vs. 42.9%). (B) There was significant decrease of oxygen saturation of liver parenchyma in the experimental group compared to those of control group (45.2 vs. 51.9%, 43.0 vs. 49.0%, and 31.3 vs. 49.7%) at the four, six, and eight weeks, respectively (P < 0.001). (C) In the Western blot analysis, the experimental group was relatively higher expression of hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) protein than the control group at eight weeks. The full-length blots with these antibodies were presented in supplementary Figure S1. (D,E) The experimental group showed significantly higher expression of HIF-1α and VEGF protein than the control group at eight-week (1.47 ± 0.48 vs. 0.19 ± 0.08 and 0.96 ± 0.23 vs. 0.33 ± 0.06, P = 0.019 and P < 0.018). *P < 0.05.