Figure 1.

Suicide gene strategy enabled fibrocyte depletion. (a) Schematic representation of the animal experiments including lethal irradiation, bone marrow transplantation (BM-Tx), and treatment with valganciclovir (VCV) and thioacetamide (TAA). While TAA induces hepatic fibrosis, VCV is metabolized into toxic compounds by all cells expressing herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase (HSV-TK). (b) Successful depletion was confirmed by RNA in situ hybridization. Fibrocytes (FC, black arrows) were identified by the simultaneous expression of Col1a1 (red) and Ptprc (CD45, blue) transcripts. The details in boxes were enlarged in individual panels in the lower right part of the micrograph. Note that individual and possibly Col1a1/Ptprc co-expressing cells were detected in the fibrocyte-ablated group. Magnification 1000×, bars 10 µm.