Fig. 3

eMSCs suppressed the tumor-related stemness of EC cells. A1-A3 eMSCs inhibited sphere-forming ability of EC organoids and cell lines. Single cell suspensions of EC cells were seeded in Matrigel and treated with NM or CM from eMSCs for 15 days. The numbers of visible spheres were calculated. Original magnification, 4 × ; Scale bar, 400 μm. B1-B3 eMSCs inhibited the transcriptional levels of EC stemness-associated genes (ALDH1, BMI1, and NANOG) both in EC organoids and cell lines. CM derived from eMSCs was used to treat EC organoids for 96 h or EC cell lines for 48 h. EC cells were then harvested for qRT-PCR analysis. NM, normal medium; CM, conditioned medium; Data were analyzed by unpaired t-test (A-B). *P < 0.05; **P < 0.01; ***P < 0.001