Figure 4
Effect of β-catenin overexpression on the differentiation of mouse mesenchymal stem cells (mMSCs) into type II alveolar epithelial (AT II) cells in vivo. (A) The differentiation of mMSCs into AT II cells was detected by immunofluorescence staining 14 days after mMSC administration in mice from the lipopolysaccharide (LPS) + mMSC control and LPS + mMSC-Ctnnb1 groups. mMSC engraftment in lung tissue appears green fluorescent protein (GFP)-positive (green), a specific AT II cell marker pro-surfactant protein C (SP-C) appears red, and co-localisation in each case appears yellow (the white arrows point to double-positive cells). The nuclei were stained with DAPI (blue). All microphotographs were taken at 400× magnification (scale bar = 20 μm). The ratio of the count of GFP-positive to the count of SP-C-positive MSCs in randomly selected high-power fields is presented as mean ± standard deviation (n = 6). &P < 0.05 versus LPS + mMSC control group. (B) The expression of the SP-C protein in the lung tissue on day 14 after mMSC administration was evaluated using Western blotting analysis. β-actin was used as an internal control, and the results represent the mean ± standard deviation (n = 6). *P < 0.05 versus normal saline (NS) + phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) group; # P < 0.05, versus LPS + PBS group; & P < 0.05, versus LPS + mMSC control group.