Figure 1

UDCA reduces shedding of TNFα, TGFα, and c-Met. HepG2 cells were either left untreated (control), or pretreated with 200 μmol/l UDCA (UDCA), or with 10 nmol/l metalloproteinase inhibitor TAPI-2 (TAPI) for 2 hours. Cells were then either stimulated with 10 nmol/l PMA (PMA) for an additional 24 hours or left non-stimulated. (A-C) Levels of human TNFα (A), TGFα (B), and sMet (C) in conditioned media were measured by ELISA. (D-F) In parallel, the relative expression levels of TNFα (D), TGFα (E) and c-Met (F) at the mRNA level were followed by qRT-PCR. Expression of genes of interest was normalized to GAPDH and expressed as fold change of control sample (for details see Materials and Methods section). Mean values ± SEM are shown (A-C, n = 3; D-F, n = 5). *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001.