Fig. 1

Human umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stem cell (hUC-MSC) therapy mitigates TNBS-induced colitis. Colitis BALB/c mice were treated with hUC-MSCs (10⁶ per mouse), while the control mice received only control medium (saline) 2 h following rectal administration of 2,4,6-trinitrobenzenesulfonic acid (TNBS). The animals were monitored every day for a total of 7 days for weight loss, the consistency of their stool, the presence of blood in their stool, disease activity and histologic scores, and the expression of mucosal barrier proteins. a Decreased weight loss; b alleviated colitis symptoms; c, d Colons were examined for their general form and length 3 days after TNBS intracolonic administration; e Histopathologic analysis (H&E staining and histological score). Inflammation was graded from 0 to 4; f Expression of the tight junction-related proteins occludin and ZO-1. The stained sections were read under a microscope and quantified using Image-Pro Plus (IPP) 6.0 software. The quantified results of occludin(g) and ZO-1(h) are presented as the mean density. The mean densities of 5 randomly selected fields in each group. Data are shown as the mean ± SEM. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001, and n.s. means not significant