Fig. 3

MSCs secrete factors which modulate the hepatic macrophages phenotype. mRNA expression levels of nitric oxide production mediators arginase-1 and iNOS (a) and of cytokines involved in the fibrogenic process (b) in macrophages preincubated 18 hours with DMEM (white bars), or AdGFP-MSCs (gray) or AdIGF-I-MSCs (black) supernatants. Similar comparisons were done at the protein level for IL-6 and IL-10 (supernatants; c and d, respectively) and TNF-α (cytoplasmic extract; e). ANOVA Tukey’s post-test; ^* p < 0.05, ^** p < 0.01, ^*** p < 0.001 and ^**** p < 0.0001 vs. macrophages/DMEM; ^σ p < 0.05, ^σσ p < 0.01 and ^σσσσ p < 0.0001 vs. macrophages/AdGFP-MSCs