Fig. 2.

The effect of acute ethanol (EtOH) and benzo(a)pyrene (BaP) exposure on aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) expression. (A) Mouse hepatic stellate cells (MHSCs) were incubated with 0, 50, 100, or 200 mM of EtOH for 6 hours. (B–D) MHSCs were treated with 100 mM EtOH for 0, 1, 3, or 6 hours. (E–F) MHSCs were incubated with 10 nM BaP or equal amount of vehicle dimethyl sulfoxide for 0, 1, 3, and 6 hours. The levels of AhR protein in the whole-cell lysates and nuclear extracts were measured by Western blot analysis and were expressed as a ratio of their immunoblot intensity relative to β-actin or to heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein (hnRNPU), respectively. The level of AhR mRNA was determined by quantitative real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction and normalized to glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) mRNA. Values represent the mean ± SEM of 5 independent experiments. *p < 0.05 versus cells without EtOH or BaP treatment.