Fig. 5
Relative gene expression of Elastin (ELN) and Aquaporin-3 (AQP3), Dermis thickness measurement, and representative images in 3D EpiDerm FT models treated for 24 h with S-HFC (a, b, c, g) and F-HFC (d, e, f, h) respectively, at different concentrations (47.00; 28.20; 23.50 µgHyp/mL, corresponding to 0.1%; 0.06% and 0.05% w/v of HFC), with respect to negative controls (CTRL for S-HFC, consisting in vehicle, and 0.00 µgHyp/mL for F-HFC, consisting in the cream without addition of HFC). For each treatment, dermis thickness was measured cutting five different hematoxylin-eosin stained sections of 5 μm thickness. In the box-and-whisker plots, the horizontal line indicates the median, the box reflects values from the first to the third quartile, and the whiskers represent the furthest points that are not outliers. Values come from at least 2 independent experiments performed in triplicate. The significant differences are indicated by symbols on bars (**** p ≤ 0.0001, *** p ≤ 0.001, ** p ≤ 0.01, * p ≤ 0.05 vs. CTRL).
