Fig. 2.

Effect of galectin-9 on bleomycin-induced lung fibrosis. a Analysis of Penh in galectin-9 wild-type (WT) mice and knockout (KO) mice. *p < 0.05. b Serum galectin-9 levels of bleomycin (BLM)- and saline-treated WT mice. *p < 0.05. c Lung tissue sections stained by hematoxylin and eosin (H&E, upper) and Masson’s trichrome stain for collagen I (middle), and immunofluorescence for αSMA (red) and DAPI nuclear staining (blue) (lower). Scale bar: 200 μm (upper and middle) and 100 μm (lower). d ACTA2, CTGF, and ET-1 mRNA levels in the lung tissues of galectin-9 WT and KO mice treated with bleomycin for 4 weeks assessed by qPCR. The relative values are presented compared with those of the WT group. * p < 0.05. e Western blot analysis of Smad2/3, CTGF, ET-1, and β-actin. Protein expression levels were normalized to β-actin expression and compared with those of the WT group. Data are shown at the mean ± SD, n = 3. *p < 0.05