Fig 2: Detection of secreted albumin and blood urea nitrogen by ELISA. The ALB and BUN concentration of UC-MSCs and BM-MSCs culture supernatants collected on weeks 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 following hepatic differentiation were measured. The medium of hepatocyte was measured as a control. Each bar represents the mean ± standard deviation (n=3). *P<0.05 vs. BM-MSCs. UC-MSCs, umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells; BM-MSCs, bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells; W, weeks; ALB, albumin; BUN, blood urea nitrogen.

Fig 3: Protein levels of ALB, TAT, CYP3A4, G-6P, α1AT and AFP were analyzed by western blot analysis. *P<0.05 vs. BM-MSCs. UC-MSCs, umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells; BM-MSCs, bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells; ALB, albumin; CYP3A4, cytochrome P450 3A4; TAT, tyrosine-aminotransferase; G-6P, glucose-6phosphate; α1AT, α1 antitrypsin; AFP, α-fetoprotein.

Fig 4: Expression levels of hepatocyte-specific genes ALB, TAT, CYP3A4, G-6P, α1AT and AFP by reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction. All of the data are presented as the mean ± standard deviation (n=3), and when compared with BM-MSCs, the fold induction for each gene induced by UC-MSCs was significant. *P<0.05 vs. BM-MSCs. UC-MSCs, umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells; BM-MSCs, bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells; ALB, albumin; CYP3A4, cytochrome P450 3A4; TAT, tyrosine-aminotransferase; G-6P, glucose-6phosphate; α1AT, α1 antitrypsin; AFP, α-fetoprotein.