Fig 1.
Schematic presentation of animal experimental protocol.
PSCs, protoscoleces; ADSCs, adipose-derived stem cells.
Fig 2.
A: Morphologies of ADSCs at the 3rd passage. B: Osteogenic differentiation of ADSCs at the 3rd passage. C: Adipogenic differentiation of ADSCs at the 3rd passage. D: Flow cytometric analysis of mouse ADSCs. These experiments were performed in triplicates.
Fig 3.
DiI-labeled ADSCs migrated to peripheral regions of the lesion.
A: Evaluation of cell viability before ADSCs transplantation. B: Efficiency of ADSCs fluorescently labeled with DiI before transplantation. C: Overlap image of DiI and trypan blue staining. D: DAPI and DiI fluorescence double staining for ADSCs tracing in vivo. Data are presented as mean ± SD (n = 6). White arrows indicates CM-DiI-labeled cells.
Fig 4.
ADSCs transplantation ameliorates liver fibrosis in E. multilocularis infected mice.
A: Representative images of H&E-stained liver sections in each group (top); Representative images of Sirius red stained liver sections in each group (middle); Representative images of Masson’s trichrome stained liver sections in each group (bottom). B: Quantification results of Masson’s trichrome staining. C: Quantification results of Sirius red staining. Data are presented as mean ± SD (n = 6). **p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001, **** p < 0.0001. Black arrows indicate the germinal layer.
Fig 5.
ADSCs transplantation inhibited HSCs activation and collagen deposition in E. multilocularis infected mice.
A: Immunohistochemical staining of α-SMA and COL1A1. B: Quantification result of α-SMA expression. C: Quantification results of COL1A1 expression. D: Quantification results of ACTA2 mRNA relative expression. E: Quantification results of COL1A1 mRNA relative expression. Data are presented as mean ± SD (n = 6). n.s., no significance, *p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001, **** p < 0.0001.
Fig 6.
ADSCs transplantation inhibited TGF-β and TGF-β receptors expression in E. multilocularis infected mice.
A: Representative immunohistochemistry images of TGF-β, TGF-βR1 and TGF-βR2 in each group. B: Quantification results of TGF-β expression. C: Quantification results of TGF-βR1 expression. D: Quantification result of TGF-βR2 expression. Data are presented as mean ± SD (n = 6). n.s., no significance, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001, **** p < 0.0001.
Fig 7.
ADSCs transplantation up-regulated Smad7 expression in E. multilocularis infected mice.
A: Western blotting results of Smad7. B: Quantification results of Smad7 protein expression. C: Quantification results of Smad7 mRNA expression. n.s., no significance. Data are presented as mean ± SD (n = 6). *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01.