Figure 1 | Laboratory Investigation

Figure 1

From: Activation of pluripotent genes in hepatic progenitor cells in the transition of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis to pre-malignant lesions

Figure 1

Representative micrographs of fluorescent immunohistochemical staining of pluripotent and morphogenic genes: c-Myc, Oct-4, KLF-4, Nanog, and Gli-1 in human NASH-HCC specimens. (a) c-Myc. (b) Oct-4. (c) KLF-4. (d) Nanog. (e) Gli-1. For each row, the left three images were the representative immunofluorescent images of c-Myc (red), Oct-4 (red), KLF-4 (red), Nanog (green), and Gli-1 (red) staining on adjacent non-tumor liver specimens of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH, first column), separation of fibrous septa (second column), and NASH-HCC area (third column). DAPI was used for nuclear staining (blue). Images were taken at original magnification (× 400). Scale bars=50 μm. On the right column are panels of the quantitative RT-PCR data of the corresponding pluripotent morphogenic gene expression in paraffin-embedded human liver tissue. *P<0.05, tumor compared to peri-tumor liver tissue. Number of tumor specimen=14; number of peri-tumor specimen=5 (only 5 in 14 peri-tumor specimens had adequate RNA from formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded tissues for quantitative RT-PCR assay). In each scatter diagram, red dots with same shape represent the specimens from the same patient.

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