L-Cysteine Administration Attenuates Pancreatic Fibrosis Induced by TNBS in Rats by Inhibiting the Activation of Pancreatic Stellate Cell
Figure 4
L-cysteine modulates extracellular matrix secretion in vitro.
For the description of groups a to d, see Figure 1. (A, B) Double immunofluorescence of collagen 1α1 (green) and α-SMA (red) in the pancreas, 4′, 6-Diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI; blue) was used to counterstain nuclei. The co-localization of collagen 1α1 and α-SMA is highlighted by the yellow color. Immunostainning showed a low expression of collagen 1α1 in the sham pancreas, but its expression increased obviously after 4 weeks TNBS treatment, while L-cysteine administration attenuated collagen 1α1 expression in CP rats. (C, D) Expression of α-SMA, MMP2, TIMP1, TGF-β1 and IL-1β proteins in 4 groups of pancreatic tissues were detected by western blot analysis. GAPDH was used as the loading control in all experiments. The results were quantified by determining the intensities of the bands compared with those of GAPDH. All data are presented as the mean±SD of three independent experiments. Significant differences: *p<0.05 vs. group c, **p<0.01 vs. group c. Representative original magnification ×400.