Functional analysis of VE-cadherin promoter by transient transfection. 5′-deleted fragments of the mouseVE-cadherin promoter were fused to the CAT gene as indicated in the text and transfected into BAEC (A) or NIH-3T3 cells (B). The HSVTK promoter was used as positive control. “0” states for the promoterless plasmid pBLCAT3. In each assay, the luciferase expression plasmid, pGL3, was cotransfected, and CAT assays were normalized according to the luciferase activity. The equivalent of 1,200 or 3,000 arbitrary light units of BAEC or NIH-3T3 cells extracts, respectively, was used to be in the linear range of the CAT assay. Each data is the average of 6 to 10 independent experiments. Standard deviations are indicated. *P < .01; ^#P < .02;^‡P < .05.