The viability of the freshly isolated hepatocytes was determined

The viability of the freshly isolated hepatocytes was determined by trypan blue exclusion and cell samples with viability greater than 90% were used in the subsequent assays. AML12 cells were seeded into 24-well plates and transiently transfected with 100 ng of (CAGA)12-Lux reporter, which encodes 12 copies of the CAGA canonical Smad DNA-binding CAL 101 sequence. Cells were cotransfected with 5 ng of pRL-SV40 plasmid expressing

Renilla luciferase per well as an internal control. At 24 hours posttransfection, cells were incubated in serum-free medium supplemented with TGF-β1 (5 ng/mL) for an additional 12 hours prior to harvesting. Luciferase activity was measured using a Dual Luciferase Reporter Assay System (Promega) and normalized to Renilla luciferase activity in each sample. All assays were performed in triplicate and the data are shown as mean values ± standard error

(SE) of at least three independent experiments. To detect the expression levels of epithelial and mesenchymal markers, AML12 cells treated as indicated were lysed in 200 μL of lysis buffer19 and subjected to western blot analysis. Approximately 50 μg of total protein was separated by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE), transferred to a PVDF membrane, and incubated IWR-1 supplier with appropriate antibodies, as indicated in the figure legends. Protein bands were visualized using an enhanced chemiluminescence (ECL) detection kit (Amersham). AML12 cells treated as indicated were collected and lysed in lysis buffer containing 10 mM Tris-Cl (pH 8.0), 25 mM EDTA (pH 8.0), 0.25% Triton X-100, and 5 mg/mL RNase A. After incubation on ice for 30 minutes, cells were scraped and centrifuged medchemexpress at 12,000g for 15 minutes. The supernatant

was incubated with proteinase K at 56°C overnight and subsequently extracted with a 1:1 mixture of phenol and chloroform. DNA fragments were precipitated in two volumes of cold ethanol and a one-tenth volume of 3 M sodium acetate and were separated by 1.5% agarose gel electrophoresis. The gel was stained with ethidium bromide and visualized under ultraviolet light. AML12 cells from each group were collected and stained with FITC-labeled Annexin V and propidium iodide (PI) according to the manufacturer’s instructions (Biovision). The percentage of apoptotic cells was measured with a FACScan flow cytometer. After being treated as indicated in Fig. 5E, primary hepatocytes in 60-mm dishes were harvested and caspase-3 activity was detected by measuring the absorbance at 405 nm according to the manufacturer’s instructions (Biovision). As described,19, 20 cells grown on coverslips were fixed in 4% paraformaldehyde and stained with the appropriate primary antibodies, followed by Cy2-conjugated antimouse IgG or Cy3-conjugated antirabbit IgG (Jackson ImmunoResearch). Nuclei were stained with DAPI. Total RNA isolation and reverse transcription were performed essentially as described.

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