Rat tail tendon collagen type 1

TGF-β1 was purchased from UcallM Biotechnology Co. (Wuxi, China). Rat tail tendon collagen type I was purchased from Solarbio (Beijing, China). The antibody against the epithelial adhesion molecule E-cadherin was purchased from Huabio (Hangzhou, China, murine monoclonal antibody, catalog number M1405-3,). The antibody against α-SMA was purchased from Sigma-Aldrich Crop (St. Louis, MO, USA, murine monoclonal antibody, catalog number A2547). AlexaFluor 555 goat anti-mouse IgG (H + L) (catalog number A0460) and fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) goat anti-mouse IgG (H + L) were obtained from Beyotime (Shanghai, China, catalog number A0568). Hoechst 33342 obtained from Sigma-Aldrich Crop was dissolved in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) (Sigma) and stored at −20 °C before use. The cell culture reagents employed included Dulbecco’s modified Eagle medium F-12 Nutrient Mixture (DMEM/F-12), fetal bovine serum (FBS), and antibiotics, which were all purchased from Gibco (Grand Island, NY, USA). Curcumin, emodin, and glycyrrhizic acid standards were purchased from Shanghai Winherb Medical Technology Co. Ltd. (Shanghai, China). The standards of licorisoflavan A, glycycoumarin, and glyasperin A were purchased from Shanghai Yuanye Bio-Technology Co. Ltd. (Shanghai, China).

Doxorubicin hydrochloride (Meilune Biological Technology Co., Ltd., Dalian, China) was reconstituted with sterile water to obtain solutions of different concentrations.
CalliSpheres^® Beads (Jiangsu Hengrui Medicine Co. Ltd., Jiangsu, China) measuring 100–300 μm were used as the carrier. CB at a dose of 0.1 mL was added to the DOX solution at a dose of 0.5 mL with a concentration of 8 mg/mL. Then, the mixture was kept for 2 h in a shaker at room temperature of 23–28 °C until the solution became relatively light in color. Finally, CBDOX at a fixed dose of 40 mg DOX/mL beads was well prepared. Lipiodol (Guerbet Laboratories Ltd., Paris, France) and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) (Cook, Inc., Bloomington, IN) were also used.
Rat tail tendon collagen type I (Solarbio Science & Technology Co., Ltd., Beijing, China) at a concentration of 5 mg collagen per mL was mixed with agarase (SunShine Biotechnology Co., Ltd., Madrid, Spain) at a concentration of 0.01 g/mL at a ratio of 1:2 to produce phantoms.

Rat tail tendon collagen type I was purchased from Solarbio Life Sciences and added to 24-well plates according to the instructions of the user guide. The three groups of cells were inoculated in the collagen mixture and placed at room temperature for solidification. After 24 h and 48 h of culture, gel shrinkage was observed and measured.