Fig. 1

Successful hyaluronan (HA) coating. a HA coating. IF analysis of HA in uncoated (left panels) and HA-coated (right panels) human biliary tree stem cells (hBTSCs) demonstrates expression of HA only in hBTSCs, which underwent a coating procedure (red dye; nuclei, blue dye) (40× magnification). IF analysis of CD44 in uncoated (left panels) and HA-coated (right panels) hBTSCs demonstrates expression of CD44 in hBTSCs (CD44, green dye; nuclei, blue dye) (40× magnification). This image is representative of the findings from n = 5 experiments. b Colony counting at day 3 in cultures of HA-coated and uncoated hBTSCs. Optical microscope contrast phase appearance of cultures of HA-coated and uncoated hBTSCs. This image is representative of the findings from n = 5 experiments (magnification 10×). c Histograms represent the number of colonies. Data expressed as mean ± SD of n = 3 different experiments; *p < 0.00001