Research Paper Volume 16, Issue 7 pp 6588—6612

Figure 1. TGF-β inhibited the growth and promoted epithelial–mesenchymal transition in liver progenitor cells. (A) Liver progenitor cell lines (WB-F344 and LE/6) were treated with TGF-β (10 ng/ml) for 3 days and then subjected to CCK-8 analyses. OD values were normalized to those of the control groups. (B) Phase contrast images of TGF-β (10 ng/ml, 3 days)-treated WB-F344 and LE/6 cells. Scale bar, 100 μm. (C) Phalloidin staining for F-actin (red) in TGF-β (10 ng/ml, 3 days)-induced WB-F344 and LE/6 cells. DAPI was used to show the location of the nucleus (blue). The white arrows indicate rearrangements of F-actin. Scale bar, 25 μm. (D) Western blot analyses of the indicated cell lines with antibodies against E-cadherin and vimentin. GAPDH was used as a loading control. (E) Transwell analyses of the motility of WB-F344 and LE/6 cells treated with or without TGF-β (10 ng/ml, 7 hr and 24 hr). Representative images of migrated cells are shown (left panel); migrated cells were counted, and the average number of cells in three independent experiments is shown (right panel). Two-tailed Student’s t-tests were used for statistical analysis. The data are presented as the mean ± S.E.M. ^***p < 0.001.