Fig. 2

NAC decreases the activation of PSCs and induces a quiescent-like state. a-b Effect of NAC, CQ and JQ-1 treatment for 72 h were performed in PSCs on protein expression (a) and mRNA expression (b) of α-SMA, collagen type I and Vimentin. CQ and JQ-1 were used as the positive control, DMSO was used as Control (negative). c Lipid droplet accumulation assay of PSCs. PSCs were stained with bodipy 493/503. Quantification of bodipy-positive puncta per cell in 20 cells plotted as the mean ± SD. Scale bar =100 um. Original magnification, × 400. Also see Supplementary Fig. S3A. d PSCs were treated with 2.5 mM NAC in 2% FBS DMEM for 2 weeks without passaging, then cultured normally in 10%FBS DMEM for another 14 days (day28). Representative microphotographs for PSCs at days 0 (Control) and day 28 (NAC-treated) were shown. After NAC treatment, the total number of PSCs were decreased, and the number of morphologically stellate-like cells were increased. Also see Supplementary Fig.S3B (e) Quantitative statistics for the percentage of stellate-like cells in (d) were calculated in nine random fields. f Representative microphotograph of α-SMA (red) and vimentin (green) immunofluorescence staining in PSC1 cells at days 0 and 28. Also see Supplementary Fig. S4E for PSC2 cells. Original magnification, × 100. Scale bar = 100 μm. *P < 0.05; **P < 0.01; ***P < 0.001; n.s, no significance