Double staining, using antibodies against CK8 and CK19, showed that these cells

We also examined phenotypic characteristics of the cells derived from hepatic stem like cells in order to probe their identity. As shown in Figure 2B, lane 4, the cells derived from hepatic stem like cells expressed Ck8, Ck18, Cyp7a1, Hnf3b, and Alb transcripts buy Amuvatinib at high levels, whereas Ck19 transcripts were significantly reduced in these cells, implicating that these cells possess the characteristics was not detected in these cells derived from SSCs, impli cating that these cells didnt convert to ES cells. Double staining, using antibodies against CK8 and CK19, revealed that the cells generated from SSCs were co expressing CK8 and CK19. Furthermore, the cells gener ated from primary mouse SSCs expressed ALB and were co expressing CK8 and CK19.<br><br> Collectively, these results suggest that SSCs could trans differentiate into hepatic stem like cells phenotypically. Notably, flow cytometry showed that over 97% of the cells derived from SSCs were positive for CK8, reflecting a rather high transdifferentiation efficiency of SSCs to hepatic stem like purchase AT-406 cells. In contrast, only 70. 9% of cells derived from SSCs were positive for of small hepatocytes in phenotypes. Immunocytochem istry further revealed that the cells derived from hepatic stem like cells strongly expressed ALB and had weak expression of CYP1A2. Double staining using antibodies against CK8 and CK19 revealed that the cells derived from hepatic stem like cells expressed CK8 but not CK19. Together, our data im plicate that hepatic stem like cells derived from SSCs differentiate into small hepatocytes morphologically and phenotypically.<br><br> Differentiation of SSCs derived hepatic stem like cells into mature hepatocyte like cells Hepatic stem cells are defined in part by their ability to differentiate into mature hepatocytes. We made endeavors to further induce the differentiation of hepatic stem like cells derived from SSCs using HCM supplemented with HGF, OSM, and Dex. In morphology, buy AG-490 small hepatocytes derived from SSCs changed to become polygonal ap pearance with tight cell cell contacts and a low ratio of cellular nucleus to cytoplasm, which showed an attribute of mature hepatocytes. In addition, our ultra structural observations provided more convincing evi dence that small hepatocytes further differentiated into mature hepatocyte like cells since they contained well developed organelles such as mitochondria, endo plasmic reticulum, lysosome and Golgi apparatus.<br><br> We probed phenotypic characteristics of the fully differ entiated cells derived from C18 4 cells and primary SSCs at transcriptional and translational levels. As shown in Figure 2B, lane 5, and Figure 2E, the cells derived from C18 4 cells and primary SSCs had strong mRNA expression of Ck8, Ck18, Cyp7a1, Hnf4a, Hnf3b, Alb, Tat, and Ttr, whereas Ck7 transcript was undetected in these cells, reflecting that they possess the characteristics of mature hepatocytes in phenotypes. Immunocytochem istry further revealed that the fully differentiated cells derived from SSCs expressed ALB and CYP1A2 at high levels.