Figure 2.

Fibrosis-related protein expression analysis via Western blot. The fibrosis-related protein levels were increased in the left ventricular tissue of high-calorie diet-induced obese rats, whereas treatment with different doses of multi-strain probiotics reduced these fibrosis-related proteins. (A) Western blots for the fibrosis pathway proteins. Quantitative analysis of the expression levels of (B) MMP2 or (C) TGF-β normalized to those of tubulin, #P<0.05, ##P<0.01 or ###P<0.001: the mean values were significantly different from those of the control group.