Table 1. Primers of rat TGF-β, IL-6, CTGF and β-actin.

Name	Sequences of primers	Length (bp)
TGF-β	5’- ATGGTGGACCGCAACAAC -3’	211
	3’- TAAGGACCGCAATGGAAC -5’
IL-6	5’- GAGTTCCGTTTCTACCTGG -3’	204
	3’- TGTCTTCCTCACCGATTCC -5’
CTGF	5’- CTGGTCCAGACCACAGAG -3’	199
	3’- GATTTTAACGGTTCGGAC -5’
β-actin	5’- GTTGACATCCGTAAAGACC -3’	200
	3’- GAGTGACAGGTGGAAGGT -5’

qPCR of cytokine mRNA. Total RNAs were extracted from cells using TRIzol Reagent (Invitrogen, CA) and 1µg RNA was reverse transcribed with ReverTra Ace®qPCR RT Kit (TOYOBO, China) to obtain cDNA samples. Quantitative PCR was performed using Platinum SYBR Green qPCR SuperMix UDG Kit (Invitrogen, USA) on the MyiQ Real-Time PCR Detection System (Bio-Rad, USA). All reactions were run in duplicates for three independent experiments. Expression of cytokines was normalized to β-actin.