The Effect of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor on Bone Marrow Mesenchymal Stem Cell Engraftment in Rat Fibrotic Liver upon Transplantation

Figure 3

Assessment of liver fibrosis in rats. (a) Three different pathological sections with staining of the liver papillary lobe in four groups (Masson’s trichrome stain, Sirius red stain, and H&E stain, ; original magnification, 40x). (b) Evaluation of the distribution of α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA; red) and collagen III (red) in four groups examined by immunofluorescent staining. Nuclei were stained with 4,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI; blue). Scale bars, 100 μm. (c) Protein levels of liver fibrotic markers: TGFβ (transforming growth factor beta), α-SMA, and collagen III in four groups of rats examined by Western blot with β-actin used as an internal control. (d) RT-qPCR was used to compare the expression of COL3A1 (collagen type III alpha 1) and IL-6 (interleukin 6) in four groups. (e) EMT-related parameters (vimentin, Twist1, Snail, Slug, E-cadherin, and occludin) were evaluated by RT-qPCR, and GADPH was used as a housekeeping gene. Results are shown as fold changes compared to the model group. compared to the model group; ^# between the BMSC+VEGF group and the BMSC group, .

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