Revisiting Epithelial-to-Mesenchymal Transition in Liver Fibrosis: Clues for a Better Understanding of the “Reactive” Biliary Epithelial Phenotype

<div>Partial expression of some mesenchymal features by ductular reactive cells. By dual immunofluorescence of a liver tissue section from a patient with ischemic cholangiopathy, with the cholangiocyte marker K7 (green), some mesenchymal features (red) are expressed by ductular reactive cells (coincident staining in yellow). They include downregulation of E-cadherin at the cell junctions of the epithelial layer (a) and upregulation in the cytoplasm of vimentin (c) and S100A4 (e) and in the basal side of fibronectin (f). In contrast, ductular reactive cells do not express typical markers of EMT, such as nuclear expression of <i>β</i>-catenin (b) and <i>α</i>-SMA (d) (M = 200x).</div>

Stem Cells International

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Figure 1: Revisiting Epithelial-to-Mesenchymal Transition in Liver Fibrosis: Clues for a Better Understanding of the “Reactive” Biliary Epithelial Phenotype 

Figure 1 | Revisiting Epithelial-to-Mesenchymal Transition in Liver Fibrosis: Clues for a Better Understanding of the “Reactive” Biliary Epithelial Phenotype 