Fig. 6.

Effect of Rk1 and Rg5 on mRNA expression and activity of (MMP–2) activated by TGF-β1. A. Chemical structure of Rk1 and Rg5A and B. A549 cells were serum starved in medium containing 0.2% fetal bovine serum (FBS) overnight. The cells were treated with Rk1 or Rg5 and stimulated with TGF-β1 (5 ng/mL) for 48 h. The conditioned media were collected and MMP-2 and MMP-9 activity in the media was analyzed by gelatin zymography. The relative MMP-2 and MMP-9 activity was expressed as fold changes with the density of untreated cells designated as 1 and shown as mean ± SD of three independent experiments. C. The expression of MMP-2 and MMP-9 mRNA was analyzed by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). Experiments were repeated at least three times (n = 3). Fold change was calculated by 2−ΔΔCt relative quantitative analysis. ∗∗p < 0.01, ∗p < 0.05 vs control and ##p < 0.01 #p < 0.05 vs TGF-β1 treated control. The data are expressed as mean ± SD for triplicates.