Fig. 4

Absence of Bcl-3 accelerates and amplifies involution signaling events. a Graph of expression levels of mRNA for Bcl-3 and Bcl-2 in virgin mice and at the indicated times in pregnancy/lactation/involution cycle derived from public data sets [56]. (http://www.madgroup.path.cam.ac.uk/resources.shtml). b qRT-PCR analysis of Bcl-3 mRNA in virgin WT and bcl-3^−/− mammary glands and at 24hI (n = 3; statistical analysis, paired t test of the indicated means). c qRT-PCR for Bcl-2 in virgin WT and bcl-3^−/− mammary glands and at d19L and 24hI. Bars are S.E.M. of 3 mice performed in triplicate. Statistical analysis; one-way ANOVA. d Bcl-2 and Smad3 immunoblots were performed on 20 ug of whole gland lysate from virgin mice and at the indicated time points in WT and bcl-3^−/− mouse mammary glands. Blots are representative of results from 3 glands per genotype. e Densitometric analysis of Bcl-2 protein normalized to actin immunoreactivity from 3 independent experiments. Bars are S.E.M. *p < 0.05 One-way ANOVA. f LIF mRNA expression in WT and bcl-3^−/− virgin mice and at 24hI determined by qRT-PCR. Bars are S.E.M of 3 mice. Statistical analysis; paired t test of the indicated means. g Immunoblot of 20ug of whole gland lysate from WT and bcl-3^−/− mice for Stat3 and P-Stat3 at the indicated time points. Anti-actin reactivity was used as a loading control. h Immunoblots of p53, Id3, Puma and Bim-EL in virgin mice and at the indicated stages. For all immunoblots, actin was used as a protein loading control