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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2013 Sep 27.
Published in final edited form as: Gut. 2010 Oct 21;60(1):108–115. doi: 10.1136/gut.2010.219741

Figure 1.

Figure 1

Ductular reaction (DR) in patients with chronic hepatitis C (CHC) by immunohistochemistry for CK7 and its topographical association with α-smooth muscle actin (αSMA). (A) Normal liver, with bile ducts of regular morphology without any evidence of DR. (B,C) Evidence of DR in a patient with CHC. Reactive ductular cells appeared as CK7-positive cells with biliary phenotype arranged in irregularly shaped structures (thin arrows). Hepatic progenitor cells appeared as small, oval, or spindle-shaped cells with scant cytoplasm and oval nucleus, alone or in small clamps (arrowheads). Intermediate hepatobiliary cells appeared as cells with morphology and size intermediate between hepatocyte and cholangiocyte with a peculiar pattern of CK7 immunoreactivity, faint on the cytoplasm and reinforced at the plasma membrane (thick arrows); ×50 final magnification. (D) Double immunohistochemistry for CK7 (brown) and αSMA (red) in a patients with CHC, showing a close topographical association between these two elements at the interface between the portal tract and the hepatic parenchyma; ×100 final magnification.