Fig. 5.

AFP⁺ fetal hepatobasts are enriched in stromal cells that express seven growth factors that support HSC maintenance, expansion, or homing. (A) FACS analysis of E15.5 fetal liver cells from Tg(AFP-GFP) mice stained by an SCF antibody as in Fig. 1; AFP⁺ cells are detected by GFP expression. (B) Relative expression of mRNAs encoding HSC expansion factors IGF2, Angptl3, TPO, IGFBP1, and CXCL12 and hepatocyte markers AFP and ALB in GFP⁺ and GFP^– cells sorted by flow cytometry. The mRNA level of each gene was determined by qPCR and normalized against ribosomal RNA. The relative expression of each gene in each population was calculated setting the level of each mRNA in GFP^– cells as in Fig. 1 (n = 3).