Figure 6.

Overexpression of CFTR alleviates fibrotic phenotype in UUO model. (a) Immunohistochemical staining showing the dramatically increased expression of β-catenin in deltaF508 mice compared to wild type mice after UUO. The black box marks the area enlarged, and the black arrows indicate the nuclear localization of β-catenin, scale bar = 50 µm; (b–d) Real time-PCR analysis showing higher expression levels of Axin-2, c-jun and Mmp7 in the deltaF508 mice than that in the wild type mice after UUO. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001, n = 3; (e–h) CFTR overexpression abrogates kidney fibrosis in mice. (e–g) Real time-PCR analysis showing the decreased expression of α-SMA, collagen I and FN in peGFP-CFTR overexpression kidneys. *p < 0.05, quantification analysis represents data from 9 control and 10 CFTR overexpressed UUO kidneys. (h) Representative western blot showing the decreased expression of matrix protein and α-SMA in CFTR overexpressed UUO kidneys (peGFP-CFTR) comparing to control UUO kidneys (peGFP-C3) and mock UUO kidney (injected same volume of microbubbles without any DNA). (Full-length blot is shown in Supplementary Figure S7l.)