Figure 3From: Developing an in vitro screening assay platform for evaluation of antifibrotic drugs using precision-cut liver slices Effect of the inflammatory, growth factor and lipid mediator (IGL) treatment on the hepatic stellate cell activation. Liver slices of 150-μm thickness were cultured either with CCL4 or IGL cocktail for 24 hours and expression levels of Acta2 (A), αB-crystallin (B) and desmin (C) were quantitated by real-time quantitative PCR using the beta actin gene as an endogenous control. Expression levels of each of the genes in the control samples (liver slices cultured with culture media alone without CCL4 or IGL cocktail) were normalized to 1. Values represent mean ± SEM (n = 4 per group). An unpaired student t-test was used for statistical comparison. *P <0.05, **P <0.01, and ***P <0.001, when compared to control.Back to article page