Fig. 1

Differential mass spectrometry analysis comparing the secretoma of control and foam human coronary smooth muscle cells (hcVSMC). A Confocal microscopy images showing control (exposed to native LDL) and foam human coronary smooth muscle cells (hcSMC) generated through exposure to aggregated LDL (agLDL). White arrows indicate the abundance of lipid droplets (LDs) in foam-hcSMC compared to control hcSMC. Scale 10 µm. B Thin layer chromatography (TLC) analysis of intracelular cholesteryl ester (CE)/free cholesterol (FC) ratio (marker of foam cell formation) in hcSMCs exposed to aggregated LDL (agLDL) (foam SMC) in absence (w/o) or presence of a foam cell inhibitor peptide (DP3) or an irrelevant peptide (IP321) for 2 h. Control cells were those unexposed to LDL (no LDL) or exposed to native LDL (nLDL). Results are shown as mean ± SD of three experiments performed in duplicate. C Results from the differential mass spectrometry analysis of secretomes in the conditions of native LDL (nLDL), aggregated LDL (agLDL) without (w/o) peptides or with inhibitor peptide (DP3) or an irrelevant peptide (IP321). O955398 (EPAC1) was one of the six proteins that met the specificity criteria for foam-hcSMCs