Fig. 3.

β-Arrestin 2 mediates AVP-induced IL-6 expression in ARCFs. a, b The silencing of β-arrestin 2 with shRNA (a) or the overexpression of β-arrestin 2 with a lentiviral vector (b) was used to manipulate the levels of β-arrestin 2. After the cells were transfected with lentiviral-shRNA for β-arrestin 2 or adenoviral containing β-arrestin 2 for 48 h, the cellular lysates were collected to determine the expression of β-arrestin 2 with western blot. c, d The silencing of β-arrestin 2 suppressed the AVP-induced mRNA and protein levels of IL-6 in ARCFs. After the cells were transfected with lentiviral or adenoviral for 48 h, the starved cells were stimulated with 10⁻⁶ M AVP for 12 h or 24 h, respectively and harvested for total RNA and supernatant. IL-6 mRNA was measured by qPCR as described in the Methods. The supernatant was collected to measure IL-6 using ELISA as described in the Methods. Notably, the overexpression of β-arrestin 2 did not alter the induction of IL-6 expression. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01 vs. control, n = 4. ^##P < 0.01. ns: no significance