**2. Results**

The PrestoBlue ™ cell viability test was conducted to determine the optimal concentration of amlodipine to be used for cell treatment that did not significantly a ffect cell viability. Based on this test, the concentration used for the treatment was 1000 ng/mL.

The gene expression profile of 12 genes belonging to the "Extracellular Matrix and Adhesion Molecules" pathway was analysed using Real time PCR (Figure 1). Table 1 reported the list gene and their fold change.

**Figure 1.** Gene expression profile of fibroblast treated with Amlodipine 1000 ng/mL.



Bold fonts indicate significant variation of gene expression level: fold change ≥ 2 and *p* value ≤ 0.05 for up-regulated genes, and fold change ≤ 0.5 and *p* value ≤ 0.05 for the significantly down-regulated genes.

Among the up-regulated genes, there was *CTNND2*, which code for the cell adhesion protein Catenin Delta 2. Other up-regulated gens were the transmembrane receptor *ITGA2* and *ITGA7* and the basement membrane constituent *LAMB1*. Most of the extracellular matrix proteases were up-regulated (*MMP10*, *MMP11*, *MMP12*, *MMP26*), except for *MMP8* and *MMP16*, which were down-regulated. Other genes that were significantly deregulated genes following the treatment with Amlodipine were *COL7A1*, which was down-regulated and the *COL4A1* that was up-regulated. In Figure 1 the significantly expression levels of the genes up- and down-regulated in fibroblast cells treated with amlodipine were represented.
