Ag490

At days 3, 6, and 11 of the modeling period, mice in the AH groups were gavaged a single dose of ethanol (31.5% ethanol(v/v), 400 μl/mouse), while mice in the control group were gavaged isocaloric dextrin maltose (45%(w/v), 400 μl/mouse). At day 10, MSCs with or without transfection were intraperitoneally (i.p.) administered to the AH+MSCs, AH+sc-MSCs, AH+siTSG-6-MSCs, and AH+MSCs+AG490 groups (5 × 10⁶ cells/mouse); following injection of MSCs, an additional dose of AG490 (Tocris, Bristol, UK) was given to the AH+MSCs+AG490 group (20 μg/mouse, i.p.); rmTSG-6 (R&D, Minneapolis, MN, USA) was injected to the AH+rmTSG-6 group (10 μg/mouse, i.p.); equal volumes of saline were administered to the control or AH group per protocol requirement. The gavage was always performed in the morning, and mice were then maintained on control or ethanol diet. After ethanol gavage, mice were lethargic and tachypneic, but they recovered within 4–6 h. The mice were always anesthetized 9 h post the last gavage with samples of blood, peritoneal fluid lavage, and liver tissues harvested for further analyses (Additional file 1).

MTX was purchased from Sigma-Aldrich (St. Louis, MO, USA). 4-HC was purchased from Carbosynth (Compton, Berkshire, UK). AG490 (a JAK2/STAT3 pathway inhibitor) was purchased from R&D Systems Inc. (Minneapolis, MN, USA). Antibodies against multidrug-resistance-associated protein 1 (MRP1) (anti-MDR1 [U1C2]) were purchased from Santa Cruz Biotechnology (Santa Cruz, CA, USA). 3-(4,5-Dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) was purchased from Solarbio Science and Technology Co. Ltd. (Beijing, China). A cell-based enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kit was purchased from RayBiotech (Norcross, GA, USA).