Figure 3.

SFN treatment positively regulated HO-1 expression level and decreased the phosphorylation of PI3K/Akt473. Consequently, the inhibitory phosphorylation of GSK-3β was reduced and then Snail-1 and β-catenin decreased (a). EMT modulation by SFN. SFN treatment resulted in a decrease of the expression of vimentin and fibronectin and a recovery of the expression of E-cadherin (b). EMT modulation by HO-1 adenovirus transfection (c), similar to the reaction by SFN; it was also shown by HO-1 adenovirus transfection (d). The Nrf2 activator was treated with 0.63, 1.25, and 1.8 μm of SFN to determine the adequate drug concentration for EMT induction in human HK2 cells (e). Western blot analysis showed that Nrf2 and HO-1 proteins were detected as a single band of about 48 kDa and 124 kDa, respectively, at a concentration-dependent manner.