Fig. 2. Adenovirus mediated increase in hepatic HNF6 expression stimulates levels of hepatocyte DNA replication and mitosis following partial hepatectomy.

Adenovirus infections and partial hepatectomy (PHx) were performed as described in Fig. 1 legend and in Materials and Methods. (A) Graph depicting increased hepatocyte DNA replication in AdHNF6 infected mice following PHx. Mice undergoing liver regeneration were injected with 5-bromo- 2′-deoxyuridine (BrdU) 2 hours prior to sacrifice. DNA replication was determined from the number of hepatocytes that incorporated BrdU measured by immunohistochemical staining of regenerating liver sections with BrdU antibody. DNA replication was determined by counting the number of BrdU stained hepatocytes from 1000 cells using three regenerating mouse livers per time point after PHx. Graphic representation of the mean number of the BrdU positive hepatocytes per 1000 cells (±SD) from mice undergoing liver regeneration infected with either AdLacZ (circles) or AdHNF6 (Squares, thick line) was plotted against the hours following PHx. Also shown immunohistochemical staining of liver sections at 40 hours following PHx with BrdU antibody from mice infected with either AdLacZ (B) or AdHNF6 (C). (D) Increased hepatocyte mitosis in AdHNF6 infected mice following PHx. Regenerating liver sections were stained with H&E and used to detect mitotic figures (mitosis) between 36 and 48 hours following PHx from three regenerating mouse livers per time point was determined as described above for BrdU incorporation rate. Graphic representation of the mean number of mitotic figures per 1000 hepatocytes (±SD) from mice undergoing liver regeneration infected with either AdLacZ (open bar) or AdHNF6 (solid bar) was plotted against the hours following PHx. The asterisks indicate statistically significant changes: *P ≤ 0.05 and **P ≤ 0.01.