Fig. 7

TGF-β promotes AREG expression in intestinal myofibroblasts through activation of Smad3. (A) Human intestinal myofibroblasts (MFs) were isolated from stenotic sites of patients with CD and treated with or without 5 ng/ml TGF-β or 10ng/ml IL-10 for 24 h. AREG expression was detected by qRT-PCR. (B) Human intestinal MFs were isolated from non-stenotic sites of patients with CD, treated with 5 ng/ml TGF-β. AREG expression was determined by qRT-PCR. (C-D) Intestinal MFs were isolated from stenotic sites and non-stenotic sites of patients with CD and cultured with or without TGF-β for 24 h. Phosphorylated Smad3 and total Smad3 were detected by western blot. (E-F) MFs from stenotic sites and non-stenotic sites were cultured with TGF-β with or without the Smad3 inhibitor for 24 h. AREG expression was detected by qRT-PCR. (G-H) MFs from stenotic sites were cultured with TGF-β with or without the Smad3 inhibitor for 24 h. COL1A1 and COL6A3 levels were detected by qRT-PCR. Representative data from 2–3 independent experiments with similar results. (B-D) Unpaired Student’s t-test; (A, E-H) one-way ANOVA. ^*P < 0.05; ^**P < 0.01; ^***P < 0.001; ns: not significant