Fig. 4

In situ isolation and high-throughput gene expression profiling of single/pooled hepatic stellate cells and hepatocytes. a Representative images showing LCM isolation of single hepatic stellate cells. DAPI and Phalloidin staining were used to identify nuclei and cell boundaries. Co-localization of DAPI and Gfap was used to identify HSCs. b Single HSCs and hepatocytes were collected from the same tissue and tested for cell type marker genes using high throughput qPCR. Cells express high levels of marker genes in a cell-type specific manner. c Using PCA on expression levels of 34 genes measure in both hepatocytes and HSCs separates cell types. The variability within a cell type appears to be higher than variability between cell types. d PCA scores shows the genes contributing to the PCA plot. e Different genes show unique patterns when comparing cell types. TNFR1 shows different mean CT values but similar variability. f PDGFA shows similar mean CT values and similar variability. g ALDH1A1 shows different mean CT values and different variability