Effect of intestinal SMVT-cKO on the level of protein expression (Western blotting) of TJ proteins in the cecum. Cecal tissue lysates were used for Western blot, and the blots were probed with anti-claudin-1 and -2, ZO-1, and MLCK antibodies. The expression of TJ proteins was normalized relative to β-actin as described in materials and methods. The graphs show relative protein expression of claudin-1 (A), claudin-2 (B), ZO-1 (C), and MLCK (D) in the cecum of cKO mice and their sex-matched littermates. Data are means ± SE of at least 3 sets of mice (*P < 0.05).