With regarding to that the pro-apoptotic gene Bax activates Caspase-3, leading to apoptosis, while the anti-apoptotic gene Bcl-2 inhibits apoptosis by blocking this process (Scarabelli et al. 2006), we performed western blot analysis, where the upregulation of anti-apoptotic gene bcl-2, in addition to the downregulation of pro-apoptotic bax and cleaved caspase-3 in the HF + F group validated anti-apoptotic role for S1R (Fig. 3C and Fig. S2). This evidence concerns the gene CASP3 and hydrops fetalis.