Fig. 2.

KMxG crude is a TGF-β1 inhibitor and inhibits TGF-β1 signaling pathway. A. Cell proliferation effect of Ginseng and KMxG in A549 cells. The cells were treated with various concentrations of Ginseng and KMxG for 24 h or 48 h on Roswell Park Memorial Institute (RPMI-1640) media. Cell proliferation was measured using CCK-8 assay. CCK-8, Cell Counting Kit-8; DMSO, dimethyl sulfoxide. B. Control A549 cells treated with DMSO appears original epithelial morphology (pebble-like shape and tight cell-cell adhesion). TGF-β1 treatment induces mesenchymal morphology. However, A549 cells treated with KMxG at concentrations of 280 μg/mL and 300 μg/mL plus 5 ng/mL TGF-β1 for 48 h show the epithelial phenotype. C. Changes in protein of the epithelial marker, E-cadherin and the mesenchymal marker vimentin were analyzed by Western blot analysis and densitometric quantification. β-Actin was used as a loading control. ∗∗p < 0.01, ∗p < 0.05 versus control and ##p < 0.01 #p < 0.05 versus TGF- β1 treated control. The data are expressed as mean ± SD for triplicates.