Figure 2

TGF-β1-induced up-regulation of fibrosis-related proteins in the GO orbital fibroblasts. (A) After treatment of the orbital fibroblasts from GO1 patient with 5, 10, 20 and 40 ng/ml TFG-β1 for 24 hours, the proteins expression of CTGF, fibronectin, and α-SMA were examined by Western blots, and (B) the densitometric scan analysis of three independent Western blots for the fold change of protein expression level was constructed as a bar graphic. Data are presented as means ± S.D. (C) After treatment of the orbital fibroblasts from GO1 patient with 5 ng/ml TFG-β1 for 12, 24, 48 and 72 hours, the proteins expression of CTGF, fibronectin and α-SMA were examined by Western blots. (D) The representative bar graphic was constructed from three independent experiments, and data are presented as means ± S.D. (E) After treatment of the GO orbital fibroblasts from four GO patients (GO1-GO4) with 5 ng/ml TFG-β1 for 24 hours, the proteins expression of CTGF, fibronectin and α-SMA were examined by Western blots, respectively. (F) The ratio of CTGF, fibronectin, and α-SMA expression to each β-actin control from GO1 without TGF-β1 treatment were defined as 1.0, and thus the other relative intensity (folds) were presented, respectively. By three independent Western blots experiments, we averaged together data from the same patient strain, and then average the means of the different patient (GO1-GO4, N = 4) strains. The representative histogram was constructed on the basis of the mean values of proteins expression levels in orbital fibroblasts of 4 GO patients, and presented as means ± S.D. (*p < 0.05 vs. control without TGF-β1 treatment; **^,##,%%p < 0.01 vs. control without TGF-β1 treatment).