Figure 4

Increased expression of epithelial and decreased expression of mesenchymal markers by a dominant STAT1 pathway. After transfection with STAT1 siRNA (40 nM) for 6 hours or Stattic (7.5 nM) pre-treatment for 1 hour, A549 cells were exposed to IL-27 (50 ng/mL) for 24 hours. Proteins responsible for the epithelial phenotype (E-cadherin and γ-catenin) and the mesenchymal phenotype (N-cadherin and vimentin) were detected by Western blot. Changes in Snail levels were also demonstrated by Western blot. Activated and total amounts of STAT1 and STAT3 were also detected, and GAPDH was used as a loading control. Densitometric measurements of the bands were taken using Image J1.45o. The values above the figures represent relative density of the bands normalized to GAPDH.