Figure 10

Effects of p38-specific inhibitors and smad3 selective inhibitors on LPS or TGF-β-induced EMT in RLE-6TN cells. The protein levels of ZEB1 and ZEB2 in RLE-6TN cells were detected by western blotting after RLE-6TN cells were stimulated with LPS and TGF-β for 24 h following pretreatment with the specific p38 inhibitor SB203580 (a) or the selective smad3 inhibitor SIS3 (b). The levels of E-cadherin, vimentin and α-SMA proteins in RLE-6TN cells were detected by western blotting after RLE-6TN cells were stimulated with LPS and TGF-β for 24 h following pretreatment with the specific p38 inhibitor SB203580 (c) or the selective smad3 inhibitor SIS3 (d). All data are expressed as the mean±s.d. from at least three replicate experiments. *P<0.05 and **P<0.01 vs the control group; #P<0.05 vs the LPS group; &P<0.05 vs the TGF-β group; $P<0.05 and $$P<0.01 vs the LPS+TGF-βgroup.