Fig. 4.

Single-cell RNA sequencing and spatial location of resident LPCs-derived Cd24a⁺Lcn2⁺ LPCs activated in chronic liver disease models. a Representative immunofluorescence staining of LCN2 and CD24 expression in different hepatic disease models. CDAHFD, Choline-Deficient L-Amino Acid-Defined High-Fat Diet; ND, normal diet. Scale bar: 100 μm. b RT-q-PCR analysis of Lcn2 and Cd24 expression in mice's fibrotic and NASH liver at different time points. The data are expressed as means ± SD of three independent experiments. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.005; ***p < 0.001. c Liver NPCs were isolated from the livers of mice fed with the AMLN diet to induce NASH and subjected to scRNA-Seq. U-map visualization of liver cell clusters based on 15,380 single-cell transcriptomes. d U-map of NASH-NPCs. The feature plots show Lcn2, Cd24a, Hnf1b, Foxa2, Ck19, Sox9, Alb and C3 expression levels. The color bar indicates the expression level of scaled genes. e Representative immunofluorescence staining of LCN2 and CD24 expression in mouse fibrotic liver treated with CCl₄. Scale bar: 100 μm. f Representative immunofluorescence staining of LCN2 and CD24 expression in human fibrotic liver tissues. Scale bar: 100 μm. g GO enrichment pathway analysis of Cd24a⁺Lcn2⁺ LPCs clusters in NASH-NPCs. h KEGG enrichment pathway analysis of Cd24a⁺Lcn2⁺ LPCs clusters in NASH-NPCs