Fig. 9 | Nature Communications

Fig. 9

From: Embryonic mesothelial-derived hepatic lineage of quiescent and heterogenous scar-orchestrating cells defined but suppressed by WT1

Fig. 9

Loss of WT1 expression by aHSCs upregulates extracellular matrix and other profibrotic transcriptional pathways and permits transition to a myofibroblast morphology. a Genes mapping to GO terms for ‘extracellular matrix’, morphological and developmental transitions, non-canonical Wnt signalling and responses to growth factors are upregulated following WT1 loss in PDGFRβCre;WT1−/fl animals after iterative injury with CCl4 in vivo. Genes mapping to immune and inflammatory responses and DNA replication are downregulated. b The population density distributions of circularity of activated RFP-positive cells under the condition of WT1 deletion was significantly different from that of control RFP(WT1)-positive cells (Bootstrapped two-sample Kolmogorov–Smirnov test, p = 0.002) during activation of qHSCs isolated from WT1CreERT2/fl;Ai14 animals in vitro, demonstrating a shift from round to myofibroblast-shaped aHSCs. Representative of three biological replicates. Scale bars 100 μm

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