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. 2014 Aug 21;9(8):e105796. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0105796

Figure 5. Rosiglitazone and SB203580 suppressed the mRNA expression of α-SMA, Col I, and CTGF.

Figure 5

Fibroblasts were treated with rosiglitazone for 2 h or SB203580 for 1 h. Next, the cells were incubated with 5 ng/mL TGF-β1 in the presence of rosiglitazone or SB203580 for 12 h (for CTGF mRNA analysis) or 24 h (for α-SMA and Col I mRNA analysis). Fibroblasts treated with vehicle control expressed little α-SMA, Col I and CTGF, increased α-SMA, Col I and CTGF mRNA expression was observed in fibroblasts treated with TGF-β1 (p<0.05, respectively). Furthermore, additional SB203580 treatments significantly decreased the TGF-β1–induced increase in α-SMA mRNA expression (p<0.05). The expression of α-SMA in cells pretreated with rosiglitazone was lower than that in cells pretreated with SB203580 (p<0.05). Cells were treated with vehicle, rosiglitazone, SB203580, and TGF-β1. Next, the cells were incubated with 5 ng/mL TGF-β1 in the presence of rosiglitazone or SB203580. α-SMA mRNA abundance was analyzed qPCR, and the housekeeping gene GAPDH transcript was used for normalization. Each bar (mean) is the average of repetitions of three repeated experiments, and the error bars shown the standard deviation. Asterisk indicates p<0.05 compared with control group; Dagger indicates p<0.05 compared with TGF-β1 group.