Figure 5
R-III treatment induces the phosphorylation of the Smad3 linker region IL-1β-dependently. (A) Hepatic stellate cells after passage 1 (HSCs-P1) were treated with R-III (0.25 μM) for 20 h, and the cell lysates were then analyzed by western blotting. The quantitative densitometric data are presented as mean fold change ± SD of three independent experiments. P-value, paired t-test (compared with untreated cells). *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01 (B) HSCs-P1 were treated with R-III in the presence or absence of interleukin (IL)-1RA (1 μg/mL), and the cell lysates were then analyzed by western blotting. (C) HSCs-P1 were treated with R-III in the presence of an inhibitor for TAK1 ((5Z)-7-oxozeaenol, 0.25 μM), p38 (SB203580, 5 μM), or JNK (SP600125, 10 μM), and the cell lysates were then analyzed by western blotting. α-tubulin was used as a loading control. Full-length blots are presented in Supplementary Fig. S4.
