Western Blot Analysis of Protein Expression

Western blot analysis was performed as previously described (26 (link)). The membrane was incubated with specific primary antibodies directed against the following proteins: p50, GPx-1, heme oxygenase (HO)-1, STAT3, histone H1 and β-actin (Santa Cruz Biotechnology, CA, USA), p65, inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and COX-2 (Abcam, Cambridge, MA, USA), and p-IκBα, IκBα and p-STAT3 (Cell Signaling, Beverly, MA, USA). Histone H1 and β-actin were used as loading controls. Band intensities were measured using the Fusion FX7 image acquisition system (Vilber Lourmat, Eberhardzell, Germany). Western blot band intensities were quantified using ImageJ software (NIH; Bethesda, MD, USA). Information on the antibodies used is provided in Supplementary Table S1.