70 kda fluorescein isothiocyanate fitc dextran

pDNA encoding the modified firefly luciferase (pGL3-Control Vector, 5.2 kbp) and Luciferase Assay System were obtained from Promega (Milan, Italy), pDNA encoding the Enhanced Green Fluorescent Protein (pEGFP-N1) was from Clontech Laboratories (Mountain View, CA, USA); pDNA purification kits were from Qiagen (Milan, Italy). Bicinchoninic acid (BCA) Protein Assay Kit, OptiMEM^® I, AlamarBlue cell viability reagent, Fibroblast Growth Factor-basic (FGFb), and Epidermal Growth Factor (EGF) were purchased from Life Technologies Italia (Monza, Italy) while human insulin was from Santa Cruz Biotechnology (Dallas, TX, USA).
HeLa (human epithelial ovarian carcinoma cells, CCL-2.2) cell line and HUASMCs (primary Human Umbilical Artery Smooth Muscle Cells, CC-2579) were purchased from the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC, Manassas, VA, USA) and from Lonza (Walkersville, MD, USA), respectively. 70 kDa fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC)-dextran was from Sigma-Aldrich (Milan, Italy). 25 kDa lPEI was from Polysciences (Eppelheim, Germany) and 25 kDa bPEI was from Sigma-Aldrich (Milan, Italy), as all other chemicals if not differently specified.

The proanthocyanidin-enriched GSPE was obtained from Les Dérivés Résiniques et Terpéniques (Dax, France; Batch number: 124029). According to the manufacturer, the extract contains monomeric (21.3%), dimeric (17.4%), trimeric (16.3%), tetrameric (13.3%) and oligomeric (5–13 units; 31.7%) proanthocyanidins. GSPE were characterized in more detail by reverse-phase chromatographic analyses by our research group [23 (link)]. Briefly, the main compounds (up to tetramers) found in the GSPE lot used in this study were Gallic acid (31 mg/g), (epi)catechin (214 mg/g), epicatechin gallate (21 mg/g), procyanidin dimers (168 mg/g), procyanidin dimer gallate (9 mg/g) and trimers (5 mg/g). The phenolic content of the extracts was quantified using the Folin method [24 (link)] as 845.5 ± 10.5 mg/g GSPE. Gallic acid, exendin 9-39 (Ex9) and 70 kDa fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC)-dextran were obtained from Sigma (St. Louis, MO, USA). GLP-1 7-36 amide was obtained from PolyPeptide (Limhamn, Sweden).