Estrogen receptor expression in chronic hepatitis C and hepatocellular carcinoma pathogenesis

Figure 4 Expression of pNF-κB and pIKK in nuclear and cytoplasmic tissue lysates from normal and diseased subjects. A: Lysates prepared from nuclear and cytoplasmic fractions of liver tissues from normal, HCV and HCC subjects were subjected to Western blotting. Nuclear tissue lysates were probed with antibodies against pNF-κB, NF-κB, β-actin, and histones while cytoplasmic tissue lysates were probed with antibodies against pIKK, IKK, β-actin and GAPDH. Representative blots for each group are depicted. B and C: The bands corresponding to pNF-κB, NF-κB, pIKK, IKK and β-actin were quantified by densitometric analyses using ImageJ. The ratio of pNF-κB:NF-κB was normalized to the expression of β-actin and plotted (B). The ratio of pIKK:IKK was normalized to the expression of β-actin and plotted with gender pooled (C) subjects. ^aP < 0.05 was considered significant. HCV: Hepatitis C virus; HCC: Hepatocellular carcinoma; ER: Estrogen receptor.