Abstract
Oval cells are liver-specific bipotent stem cells which accumulate in injured liver when proliferation of mature hepatocytes and/or cholangiocytes is impaired. They represent an intermediary cell type with phenotypical characteristics of both, hepatocytes and cholangiocytes. Oval cells express specific cell surface proteins allowing their identification in situ. Most of these cell surface proteins, however, are recognized by antibodies in mouse liver tissue that are not commercially available or work only on frozen sections. We show herein the unequivocal identification of oval cells in paraffin-embedded mouse liver samples based on strong E-cadherin expression different from that of hepatocytes and bile duct cells. By comparing the pattern of E-cadherin expression with that of both, A6-antigen and CD44, we suggest a tight control of E-cadherin expression depending on the differentiation stage of the progenitor cells. In human cirrhotic liver samples E-cadherin expression was found as a common feature of both, typical and atypical reactions, and, thus, can also serve as an indication of the progenitor cell compartment activation.
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Acknowledgment
We thank Natalya Engelhardt (Kolzow Institute, Moscow) for generously providing of A6 antibody and Sarah Koenig for providing of rat liver sections of the AAF/PH model for oval cell activation. The authors thank Martina Fügenschuh, Institute of Pathology, University of Leipzig for embedding tissue and Doris Mahn for preparing the mouse liver sections. We thank Jens Grosche, IZKF, University of Leipzig, for performing Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy. The work was supported by the Interdisciplinary Centre for Clinical Research at the Medical Faculty of the University of Leipzig (01KS9504, projects C01 and D07).
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Ueberham, E., Aigner, T., Ueberham, U. et al. E-cadherin as a reliable cell surface marker for the identification of liver specific stem cells. J Mol Hist 38, 359–368 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10735-007-9098-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10735-007-9098-1