Fig. 7

Effects of CM from HLF on protein expression of EMT markers in HBE cells. HBE cells from normal subjects (N) or COPD patients (D) were lysed after stimulation with or without 100 % CM collected from human lung fibroblasts of N or D for 5 days. Total protein was prepared analysed by western blotting, using 40 μg of protein per lane. The membranes were probed with anti-E-cadherin, anti-N-cadherin, anti-vimentin, or anti-GAPDH antibodies. The intensities of the bands for target protein were normalized to the corresponding GAPDH bands for the each treated cells. (a) E-cadherin, (b) N-cadherin, (c) vimentin, and (d) the ratio of E-/N-cadherin were calculated. Data were analysed and expressed as mean (SE) of from seven to ten independent experiments by one-way ANOVA with Tukey’s multiple comparison test, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, compared between the indicated groups