Fig. 7
From: Mesangial cells are key contributors to the fibrotic damage seen in the lupus nephritis glomerulus
Production of latent TGF-β1 by conditionally immortalised mesangial cells following stimulation with cytokines or lupus nephritis patient sera. Conditionally immortalised MCs were treated with IL-1β, TNF-α, IFN-α and IFN-γ alone and in combination (Combo) for 4 and 24 h. Or with 10% sera from patients with active (rBILAG A/B) and inactive (rBILAG D/E) LN and with age-and sex-matched HCs for 24 h. Levels of latent TGF-β1 were assessed in conditioned media from 4 h cytokine treatments (a), 24 h cytokine treatments (b), 24 h sera treatments (c) and directly in the sera (black bar) compared to conditioned media from sera treatments (grey bar) (d). N = 5–6 per group, data are analysed using Friedman’s test (cytokine treatments) or Kruskal-Wallis test (sera treatments) with Dunn’s post-hoc test, *P < 0.05 vs control (a,b) or MC (c)