Fig. 4. Reduced pSmad3 in mice treated with c8.

(A) Representative liver (top panels) and lung (bottom panels) sections from mice treated with c16 or c8 after induced fibrotic injury stained for fibroblasts [PDGFRβ (plateletderived growth factor receptor β), green] and pSmad3 (red). (B) Quantification of pSmad3 nuclear intensity within individual PDGFRβ⁺ cells documents a significant reduction in fibroblast-specific pSmad3 in fibrotic mice treated with c8. Data represent means ± SEM; n = 102 (Bleo c8), n = 254 (Bleo c16), n = 262 (CCl₄ c8), and n = 361(CCl₄ c16). For both comparisons, P < 0.0001 (shown is a representative example of the distribution of individual pSmad3 mean fluorescence intensities in PDGFRβ⁺ cells, and the average of these means, for a single sample condition). Scale bar, 100 µm. P values were calculated using the unpaired Student’s t tests.