Fig. 5

Identification of the cellular properties and reversibility of uMSC-mediated MFB de-differentiation. A Principal component analysis (PCA) on transcriptomes of FB, MFB, and co-cultured MFB samples. B Unsupervised clustering heatmap of 45 gene-panel involved in myofibril assembly on FB, MFB, and co-cultured MFB samples. C RT-qPCR assays on the expression of ACTA2 (encoding for a-SMA), COL1A1, COL3A1, and FN1 in cells from the 6 group settings: (1) Untreated FB; (2) MFB; (3) Short-term co-cultured MFB (FB-like cells); (4) Long-term co-cultured MFB; (5) FB-like cells treated with TGF-β1 without uMSC feeder layer; (6) TGF-β1-treated FB-like cells with additional uMSC feeder layer. D, E Western blot assays on FN1, COL1A1, and a-SMA proteins in cells from the 6 group settings: (1) Untreated FB; (2) MFB; (3) Short-term co-cultured MFB (FB-like cells); (4) Long-term co-cultured MFB; (5) FB-like cells treated with TGF-β1 without uMSC feeder layer; (6) TGF-β1-treated FB-like cells with additional uMSC feeder layer. F, G The proliferation of FB, MFB, and co-cultured MFB by light microscopy and CCK-8 assays. H, I Apoptosis FB, MFB and co-cultured MFB by Annexin V/PI assays. * < 0.05; **P < 0.01; ***P < 0.001