Figure 5

Central role of Wnt and IGF signaling activity on therapeutic effect of M-MSCs. (a,b) RQ-PCR analyses of expression levels of Shh, Wnt, and downstream growth factors (a) and representative confocal micrographs (magnification ×1,000, scale bar = 10 μm) for immunofluorescence staining of β-catenin protein (b) in the bladder tissues of the indicated groups 1 week after the injection of 1 × 10⁶ M-MSCs or PBS vehicle into HCl-IC animals. Expression is presented as % Gapdh (n = 10). (c) Quantitative data of bladder voiding parameters in rats (from 8 independent animals per group) at 1 week after the injection of 1 × 10⁶ M-MSCs into HCl-IC animals in the absence or presence of indomethacin (Wnt blocker) or Gefitinib (IGF-mediated signaling inhibitor) intervention. All data are presented as the mean ± SEM, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001 compared to the HCl-IC group with Bonferroni post-test. (d) Detection of M-MSCs stably expressing GFP (red) in the indicated rat bladders by immuostaining (magnification ×200, scale bar = 200 μm). Nuclei were stained with DAPI (blue). Arrow heads indicate the engrafted cells. U; Urothelium, S; Serosa.