Potential Effect of Exosomes Derived from Cancer Stem Cells and MSCs on Progression of DEN-Induced HCC in Rats

Figure 1

Identification of cultured CSCs and MSCs. MSCs with their characteristic fusiform (fibroblast-like) shape were grown after passage 2 (a) and passage 8 (b). After 2 weeks of plating HCC explants, stem-like cancer cells were grown (c), with characteristic clonal expansion (d) and a very notable proliferative ability (e), and later on few floating cells forming spheres appeared (f). The isolated CSCs and MSCs confirmed by detection of stem cell-specific genes Nanog (120 bp) and Oct3/4 (165 bp) using RT-PCR (g), and by flow cytometry which revealed that CSCs were CD24⁺, CD44⁺, CD133⁺, EpCam⁺, and CD45⁻, while MSCs were CD90⁺, CD44⁺, CD45⁻, and CD34⁻ (h). Scale bars: 35 μm (c–e) and 50 μm (a, b, f).

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