Hepatic stem cell transplantation has been demonstrated as an effective alternative therapy for the end-stage liver failure patients. Therefore, the functional detection of hepatic stem cell is essentially required. The present study confirmed that adenovirus BMP9 (Ad-BMP9) could increase the ALB-Gluc activity of HP14-19 hepatic progenitor cells, the expression of specific hepatic markers ALB, TAT, UGT1A were up-regulated while the hepatic stem cell markers DLK, AFP were down-regulated, and the number of positive Periodic acid-Schiff (PAS) stained cells were significantly higher than those in control group. However, the indocyanine green (ICG) uptake failed to be detectable in induced hepatocytes, which was inconsistent. By using another cell line LC14d, we found out that positive ICG uptake cells were located in the area of low cell density, while positive PAS stained cells were mainly concentrated in the area where cells were overlapped, indicating that different cell confluence might affect the outcomes of ICG uptake and PAS staining. A manual wound healing of Ad-BMP9 induced HP14-19 cells was made, the crawling cells were stained positive for ICG but not for PAS. Therefore, our finding may provide evidence for better application of PAS staining and ICG uptake assay in functional detection of mature hepatocytes.

肝干细胞移植已被证明是终末期肝衰竭患者的有效替代疗法。因此，肝干细胞的功能检测必不可少。本研究证实腺病毒BMP9（Ad-BMP9）可以增加HP14-19肝祖细胞的ALB-Gluc活性，特异性肝标志物ALB、TAT、UGT1A的表达上调，而肝干细胞标志物DLK、 AFP表达下调，过碘酸-希夫（PAS）染色阳性细胞数明显高于对照组。然而，在诱导肝细胞中未能检测到吲哚菁绿 (ICG) 摄取，这是不一致的。通过使用另一个细胞系 LC14d，我们发现阳性 ICG 摄取细胞位于细胞密度低的区域，而阳性PAS染色的细胞主要集中在细胞重叠的区域，说明不同的细胞汇合度可能会影响ICG摄取和PAS染色的结果。对 Ad-BMP9 诱导的 HP14-19 细胞进行人工伤口愈合，爬行细胞对 ICG 染色但对 PAS 未染色。因此，我们的发现可能为更好地应用 PAS 染色和 ICG 摄取测定在成熟肝细胞的功能检测中提供证据。