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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2010 Oct 5.
Published in final edited form as: Gastroenterology. 2010 Jun 1;139(4):1375–1384.e4. doi: 10.1053/j.gastro.2010.05.074

Figure 5. Phagocytosis of apoptotic hepatocytes in vivo results in a fibrogenic response.

Figure 5

Immunohistochemistry and confocal microscopy were performed to visualize GFP-labeled hepatocytes and their AB and activated HSC (α-SMA, red). (GFP was only expressed in hepatocytes because of the hepatocyte specific α1-AT promoter). There was an increase in the number of activated HSC (α-SMA, red) in the liver of mice injected with α1-AT-LV-GFP plus Ad-TRAIL (Figure 5d, e), while the only Ad-TRAIL (Figure 5b), or only LV-GFP (Figure 5c) injected mice had the same amount of activated HSC as control, uninjected mice (Figure 5a), bar=50 μm. At higher magnification in the α-SMA-positive HSC, GFP-labeled AB could be seen, indicating phagocytosis of hepatocyte-derived AB (arrow, arrowhead depicts apoptotic hepatocytes and AB, Figure 5f), bar=20 μm.