Fig. 3

hTERT-MSC increased pancreatic β-cell proliferation. Control underwent pancreatectomy with intravenous injection of culture medium. a Representative pancreatic sections stained with anti-insulin (blue) and anti-BrdU antibodies. A brown spot within the islets surrounded by blue-coloured cytoplasm represented the β-cell nucleus labelled with BrdU. b Total number of BrdU⁺ cells within the sectioned islet area. c Number of islets per field (two or three). d Islets area and e insulin content in the residual pancreas after 8 days of pancreatectomy. Data represent mean ± SEM. From each mouse, at least four sections with 7 μm thickness were picked with an interval of five subsequent sections. One-way ANOVA with Tukey’s post hoc test was used for analyzing the data. Insulin area was calculated with the Image J software. From each group, intravenous route (IVR), intrapancreatic route (IPR) of transplanted human telomerase reverse transcriptase mesenchymal stem cells (hTERT-MSC), 32 sections per group were analyzed to measure BrdU positive cells and islet areas, n = 7, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01