Fig. 2. p38-MAPK activation after myocardial stretch. A: Stretch ("St") significantly increased p38-MAPK phosphorylation (p-p38-MAPK) compared to the non-stretched control ("C"). As it can be appreciated, this effect was cancelled when the muscles were pre-treated with the p38-MAPK inhibitor SB202190 ("St+SB"), but not by SB202474, the inactive analogous of SB202190 ("St+IA"). B: Five minutes of stretch significantly increased HSP27 phosphorylation, a known downstream target of p38-MAPK. This effect was blunted by the p38-MAPK inhibitor ("St+SB"), but not by the inactive analogous ("St+IA"), demonstrating that p38-MAPK is activated by the stretch. Bar graphs depict averaged data. Representative blots are shown on top of the bars. Importantly, neither SB202190 nor its inactive analogous (SB202474) alone modified basal p-p38-MAPK (105±4 % of control, n=6 and 102±4% of control, n=4, respectively) or p-HSP27 (88±6% of control, n=4 and 98.5±12% of control, n=4). * indicates p<0.05 vs control (non-stretched) and # indicates p<0.05 vs. St and St+IA.