Fig. 4

Effect of IL-24 on CCD-18Co cells. Presence of IL-20RB (red) and αSMA (green) on CCD-18Co colon fibroblast cells was determined by immunofluorescence staining (a). Nuclei are stained with Hoechst33342 (blue). Scale bar: 50 µm. The mRNA expression of MMP2 (b), MMP9 (c), TIMP1 (d) and TIMP2 (e) of CCD-18Co colon fibroblasts was determined by real-time PCR, by comparison with GAPDH as internal control (n = 6). Migration ability of CCD-18Co cells was investigated using fibroblast migration assay (f). The area of cell-free gap was measured after IL-24 treatment (post-migration) and determined as the ration of initial gap size (pre-migration) (g). Results are presented as mean ± SD. *p < 0.05 vs. control (Mann–Whitney U-test)