Figure 6

Desipramine improves endothelial stress response during sepsis. Semi-confluent HMECs (1 × 10⁴) were incubated for 24 h with serum (5%) obtained from healthy individuals, from patients with sepsis (n = 6) or proinflammatory cytokines (CM). (A, B) Co-incubation with desipramine (20 µmolL, preincubation for 24 h) abrogated ADAMTS13 expression as normalized to reference transcript GAPDH. Desipramine treatment of HMECs diminished LDH release into the supernatant following the stimulation with serum obtained from sepsis patients (C) or proinflammatory cytokines (D). The boxes indicate the interquartile range, divided by the median (central horizontal line) as analyzed in at least four independent experiments. OD optical density.