HMGB1 induced lung myofibroblast transition and migration in WI-38 cells.

<p>Cells were treated with 1, 10, and 100 ng/mL of HMGB1 for 24 h. (A) Cytotoxicity was detected by MTT. (B) Cell proliferation was detected by BrdU incorporation. (C) Myofibroblast transition was detected using α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) expression by immunofluorescence staining and quantification of α-SMA performed using ImageJ software (D). (E) Detection ofα-SMA expression by Western blotting and quantification of α-SMA performed using Image J software (F). (G) Cells were treated with 1, 10, and 100 ng/mL HMGB1 for 18 h. Cell migration was detected by <i>in vitro</i> scratch assay as described in Materials & Methods. (H) Quantification of cell migration was performed by counting the cell numbers in the rectangle in each sample for 4 fields. Data are expressed as mean ± S.E.M. (n ≥ 3) *<i>p</i><0.05, **<i>p</i><0.01, ***<i>p</i><0.001 as compared with negative control (NC) group, in which the cells were treated with PBS.