Figure 5.

Effect of β-MCD on HG/TGF-β₁ induced collagen-1 protein expression. MCs were left untreated or pre-treatmented with β-MCD (5 mmol/l), continued to be present during subsequent treatments) for 1 h, followed by HG (30 mmol/l) or TGF-β₁ (10 ng/ml) for 48 h in the absence or presence of cholesterol (15 μg/ml). Collagen-1 protein expression was determined by Western blotting. A. Representative result of Western blots for collagen-1 protein expression induced by HG (n = 3). B. Representative result of Western blots for collagen-1 protein expression induced by TGF-β₁ (n = 3). Results of quantitative analyses are presented in the corresponding lower panels. A. *P < 0.05, vs. NG. B. *P < 0.05, vs. controls.