GFP fluorescence was collected through a 530/40

nm bandpass filter. Cells were sorted at a rate of 30,000 events per second using a sort purify 1 drop window. GFP-positive cells were sorted into Waymouth’s this website culture medium supplemented with 10% FBS and plated. X-gal staining was performed in the same manner as described above. Liver tissues were fixed in 10% buffered formalin, embedded in paraffin, and sectioned at 5 μm thickness. Sections were stained with Sirius red solution (0.1% Direct Red 80 in saturated picric acid) to visualize collagen deposition. Hepatocytes were isolated and cultured from triple transgenic mice ROSA26 stop β-gal, Alb Cre, and Coll GFP. Hepatocytes were GFP-negative before TGFβ-1 treatment or after 48 hours culture without TGFβ-1 (Fig. 1A, left and middle). Treatment of hepatocytes with 3 ng/mL TGFβ-1 for 48 hours induced a fibroblast-like morphological change (Fig. 1A, upper APO866 cell line right), consistent with previous findings.6, 13 TGFβ-1 treatment not only induced a fibroblast-like morphological change, but also activated the collagen α1(I) promoter, as demonstrated by GFP expression in TGFβ-1-treated hepatocytes (Fig. 1A, middle right). The messenger RNA (mRNA) level of collagen α1(I) in TGFβ-1-treated hepatocytes was increased to a level comparable to culture-activated HSCs (Supporting Fig. S1A). The increase was not blocked by gliotoxin, which eliminates potentially

contaminating HSCs, as demonstrated by inhibition of the level of desmin, a marker for HSCs (Supporting Fig. S1B). β-Gal expression of

GFP-positive cells indicated that these cells were not contaminating nonparenchymal cells, but instead originally derived from hepatocytes (Fig. 1A, bottom, right). This result was confirmed by another experiment in which X-gal staining was followed by immunocytochemistry for GFP. Consistently, hepatocytes doubly positive for GFP and β-gal appeared upon stimulation with TGFβ-1 (Fig. 1B, right). A few GFP-positive cells were seen even in the absence of TGFβ-1 (Fig. 1B, middle). However, they were never positive for β-gal, indicating they were contaminating nonparenchymal cells. Liver fibrosis was induced in triple transgenic mice ROSA26 stop β-gal, Alb Cre, and Coll GFP by eight injections with CCl4 (Supporting medchemexpress Fig. S2). GFP-positive cells (collagen-expressing cells) were seen along fibrotic septa (Fig. 2, upper). However, they were never positive for β-gal, as demonstrated by the lack of double-positive cells in merged images of GFP and X-gal staining (Fig. 2, bottom). Higher-magnification images clearly show that the GFP-positive cells are present exclusively in the X-gal-negative area (Supporting Fig. S3). The absence of hepatocyte-derived collagen-expressing cells (i.e., cells double positive for GFP and β-gal) was confirmed by cell isolation; double-positive cells were not seen in the whole liver cell fraction (Fig.