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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2019 Jul 15.
Published in final edited form as: Dev Biol. 2018 Apr 22;439(2):92–101. doi: 10.1016/j.ydbio.2018.04.015

Figure 6. TFAM is required for intestinal stem cell maintenance.

Figure 6

(A) Transcript levels of genes known to express in the crypt-base-columnar stem cells are dramatically reduced after TFAM-loss in the adult epithelium (t-test, n= 7 controls, 4 mutants). (B) Immunohistochemistry for the crypt-base-columnar stem cell marker OLFM4 shows that this protein is greatly reduced in Tfam mutants. (C) Crypt cultures were performed to assay stem cell activity in control and TFAM-mutant mice. Crypts from mice 4 days after treatment to induce TFAM loss gave rise to initial organoid structures but could not sustain their growth, consistent with a lack of stem cell activity. Control crypts gave rise to viable organoids. (Images correspond to 2 independent biological replicates. Six biological replicates exhibited similar results.) (D–E) Quantification of organoid forming efficiency and survival to 6 days after plating duodenal crypts (t-test, n= 4 controls, 4 mutants). Histology is imaged from the ileum, but representative of the entire small intestine. Scale bars = 50µm.