Figure 6.

Effects of SME on the expression of Bcl-2 family proteins in aHSC. aHSCs were treated with the indicated concentrations of SME for 72 h. The expression levels of Bcl-2, Bax, Bak, and β-actin were measured by western blot analysis (a). Quantitative densitometric analysis was used to calculate the values of Bcl-2 (b) and Bax (c) normalized against β-actin. Three independent experiments (n = 3; i.e., using cell preparations from 3 rat livers) were carried out for any sets of experiments. The results are presented as the means ± SD. ^∗ p < 0.05, ^∗∗ p < 0.01, compared with control (0 mg/mL SME).