Fig. 4

Immunohistochemical staining of TNF-α (upper panel), TGF-β1 (middle panel) and SMAD4 (lower panel) protein on the 28th day in the rat lung tissue of control and experimental animals. a Lung section of control group showed a small degree of immunostaining of TNF-α, TGF-β1 and SMAD4. b BLM-group showed increased expression of TNF-α, TGF-β1 and SMAD4 as illustrated by the brown color. c–f Sections of lung tissues from the rats treated with DEX or different doses of SML [low-dose (LD), medium-dose (MD), high-dose(HD)] showing moderate to mild positive immunoreaction of TNF-α, TGF-β1 and SMAD4