Figure 2

The hAMSC were able to transdifferentiate into hepatocyte-like and chondrocyte-like cells. hAMSC were cultured with medium either for hepatocytes or chondrocytes differentiation for 3 weeks, and immunostained for albumin or collagen, respectively. The differentiation was corroborated with a PAS and alcian blue stains for hepatocyte-like and chondrocyte-like cells, respectively. Fluorescence micrographs of hAMSC differentiated into hepatocyte-like cells expressing albumin (upper-left panel), and chondrocyte-like cells showing positivity to collagen-II (upper-right panel). Their nuclei were identified with DAPI. Scale bars represent 20 μm (A). Direct-light micrographs of hepatocytes-like cells producing glycogen demonstrated by PAS stain in their cytoplasm (lower-left panel), and of chondrocyte-like cells synthesizing proteoglycans and glycosaminoglycans stained with alcian blue (lower-right panel) (B). Scale bars represent 100 μm. These are representative images from three independent assays.