Figure 1

Characterization of mouse liver portal perivascular region NG2⁺ (MLpvNG2⁺) cells.

(Aa–d) cultured MLpvNG2⁺ cells at different times (P = passage, d = day). (Ae): P2 cells were incubated with antibodies against NG2 (Red). (B) P2 cells were incubated with antibodies against CK19, Sca-1, CD133 DLK and PDGFR-β (Green). (Ca–e) EpCAM (a), CD14 (b), CD24 (c), CD49f (d) and vWf (e) were quantified by flow cytometry. (Da–c) Cell cultures from P2 (a), P4 (b) and P8 (c) stained with antibodies against NG2 (Red) corresponding with bright-field; DAPI (blue) staining was used to visualize nuclei. (Dd) P2, P4 and P8 of MLpvNG2⁺ cells proliferation using BrdU incorporation. Proliferation was assessed by quantifying the number of BrdU-positive cells as a proportion of the total number of NG2⁺ cells (Ea–c) Differentiation of the MLpvNG2⁺ cells into osteogenic cells (a), adipocytes (b), cartilage cells (c). (Fa–c) MLpvNG2⁺ cell proliferation detected by CCk-8 assay confirmed the changed in morphology from (a–b) and fast response (10 min) (c) of MLpvNG2⁺ cells to pathological signals from homogenate of cirrhotic liver induced by DEN (Cir-hm). Data are shown as means ± standard error of the mean (SEM) of duplicate preparations from three independent experiments. Scale bars = 100 μm (B,D,F). Scale bars = 50 μm (A,E)