Fig. 5

Suppression of HK2 is required for costunolide inhibition of HSC. Primary rat HSCs at passages 3 through 5 were treated with costunolide at the indicated concentrations or transfected with HK2 overexpression plasmid for 24 h. a – Real-time PCR for determining the mRNA expression of α-SMA and collagen I. b – Western blot assay for determining the protein expression of α-SMA and collagen I with quantification of the blots. Statistics: **p < 0.01 vs. control; ^#p < 0.05, ^##p < 0.01 vs. costunolide