Rosiglitazone and SB203580 attenuated fibroblast proliferation induced by TGF-β1.

<p>(<b>A</b>) Cell Counting Kit-8 assays showed that treatment with TGF-β1 significantly increased the proliferation of fibroblasts after 24 h (<i>p</i><0.05). While the TGF-β1-induced proliferation was inhibited by SB203580 in a dose-dependent manner (<i>p</i><0.05). There is no significant differences among 10, 20 and 50 µmol/L (<i>p</i>>0.05). Cells were treated with TGF-β1 in the presence or absence of p38 specific inhibitor SB20380 at concentrations of 1, 10, 20 and 50 µmol/L. (<b>B</b>) SB203580 (10 µmol/L) alone exhibited no significant effect on fibroblast viability (<i>p</i>>0.05). The inhibitory effect of SB203580 on TGF-β1 stimulated cell proliferation was weaker than the effect of rosiglitazone (<i>p</i><0.05). Each bar (mean) is the average of repetitions of three repeated experiments, and the error bars shown the standard deviation. Asterisk indicates p<0.05 compared with control group; Dagger indicates p<0.05 compared with TGF-β1 group.