Fig. 1

Effects of TGF-β1 treatment on cell proliferation, the expression of CD44, GSN, and EMT markers (i.e. N-cadherin, vimentin, and E-cadherin) in MDA-MB231 breast cancer cells. a MTT assay of cell viability after incubation of MDA-MB231 breast cancer cells with TGF-β1 from 1 to 5 ng/ml for 0, 24, 48, 72, and 96 h. b Western blotting (top) with quantitative analyses (bottom) showed a dose dependent increase in protein expressions for CD44 and GSN in MDA-MB231 cells treated with 0, 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 ng/ml of TGF-β1 for 72 h. c Western blotting (top) with quantitative analyses (bottom) of vimentin, N-cadherin, CD44, and E-cadherin levels in MDA-MB231cells treated with 0, 1, 2, 5 ng/ml of TGF-β1 for 72 h. GAPDH used as an internal control. d Real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR) analysis showed the mRNA level for GSN, E-cadherin, N-cadherin, and vimentin in MDA-MB231 cells treated with or without 2 ng/ml TGF-β1 for 3 days. In a, b, c, and d, the values are the mean ± SEM (n = 6), with * indicating a significant difference compared to the untreated cells