Fig. 8.

Berberine suppresses signaling pathways which mediate proinflammatory cytokine production in colonic macrophages and epithelial cells. Colonic macrophages (A) and epithelial cells (B) were isolated from mice treated as shown in Fig. 2. Each lane represents the combination of same number of macrophages pooled from 5 mice (A) or epithelial cells from 1 mouse (B) in each treatment group. Total cellular lysates were prepared for detecting the activation state of the indicated signals by Western blot analysis. The actin blot was used as protein loading control. The relative density of the signaling band on Western blot was compared with the actin band in each group. The ratio in the water group was set as 100%, and ratios of DSS and DSS+Ber were compared with that of the water group. Average fold changes are shown under the blot; n = at least 5 mice in each group.