Figure 5.

Diosgenin attenuates TGF-β1-stimulated phosphorylation of Smad3 in HSC-T6 cells. Serum-starved HSC-T6 cells were treated with diosgenin in the presence or absence of TGF-β1 (5 ng/ml). (A) Phosphorylation level of Smad3 was analyzed by immunoblotting with specific antibodies. The relative protein expression levels of p-Smad3 (B) and Smad3 (C) were quantified using Image-Pro Plus 6.0 software and normalized to β-actin. Values were expressed as mean ± SD of three independent experiments. *P<0.05 compared with the control group. #P<0.05 compared with the TGF-β1 group.