Figure 8

Co-localization of alpha smooth muscle-actin and VCAM1 molecules in hepatic stellate cells and quantitative mRNA and protein expression analysis of CCL2. In liver cirrhosis tissues, immunohistochemisty analysis was performed with antibodies against α-SMA (A, 400×) and VCAM1 (B, 400×). Double-staining and ex vivo immunofluorescence analysis was used to evaluate the co-localization (orange) of the typical stellate cell marker α-SMA (red) and VCAM-1 (green) in activated stellate cells of liver cirrhosis tissues (C, 630×). Quantitative real-time PCR (A) was performed with the Light Cycler Fast Start DNA SYBR Green kit. (B) A commercial ELISA kit was used to measure the CCL2 protein in the cell lysates of cultured stellate cells. The disease specific expression of CCL2 is depicted in the last two columns of each graph.