Fig. 1

ALLN inhibits the fibrogenic activity of cultured human dermal fibroblasts stimulated with TGF-β1. Normal human dermal fibroblasts were pretreated with DMSO as control or various concentrations of DMSO-diluted ALLN for 1 h, followed by stimulation with 10 ng/ml recombinant human TGF-β1 for an additional 24 h. After harvesting, mRNA and protein expression of the indicated molecules were evaluated by real-time RT-PCR (A) and Western blotting (B), respectively. Values were normalized to GAPDH and tubulin levels and are shown as relative levels (mean ± SEM). All values represent mean ± SEM; n = 5 each group; *, p ≤ 0.05; **, p ≤ 0.01, ***, p ≤ 0.001. C Fibroblasts were immunostained for αSMA, COL1A2, or FN1 (green). Nuclear counterstaining (blue) was performed with DAPI. Representative images of three experiments are shown (400-fold magnification)