Fig. 1.

Lgr5⁺ liver stem cells transplantation decreased liver fibrosis. a Schematic overview of the experimental setup. Eight-week-old wild-type C57 mice were i.p. injected with CCL4 (2 ml/kg, Sigma-Aldrich) dissolved in olive oil at a ratio of 1:4, or olive oil alone (2 ml/kg) twice a week for 6 weeks. Lgr5-GFP⁺ liver stem cells or primary hepatocyte (PH) derived from Lgr5-GFP mice were transplanted into the liver fibrosis mice by intrasplenical injection on day 0. b Lgr5⁺ cells were isolated from Lgr5-GFP mice treated with CCL4 by FACS assay for transplantation (left). The liver Lgr5 expression was stained using anti-GFP antibody in mice with Lgr5⁺ cells or PH transplantation (right) on day 40. n = 10 mice, scale bars, 200 μm. c, d Lgr5⁺ liver stem cells transplantation decreased CCL4-induced liver fibrosis and recovered liver functions. Lgr5-GFP⁺ liver stem cells or PH transplantation were described in a; the livers were harvested and stained using H&E and Sirius Red for fibrosis analysis and quantification of positive-staining areas measured by Image J software (c). The serum was harvested for ALT and AST analysis (d, e). For c, scale bars, 200 μm, the results are shown as mean ± s.d. of five independent sections taken randomly per mice and a total of 50 tissue specimens in each group (n = 10 mice) *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01. For d, e, triplicates for each condition were analyzed. The results are shown as mean ± s.d. of three independent experiments. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01