Pancreatic stellate cell: Pandora's box for pancreatic disease biology

Figure 1 Morphological changes observed in cultured rat pancreatic stellate cells at different time points after isolation. A: Quiescent pancreatic stellate cells (PSCs) in culture exhibiting a flattened shape with lipid droplets, 6 h after isolation (× 20); B, C: PSCs showing flattened angular appearance and exhibiting cytoplasmic extensions with lipid droplets after 24 and 48 h respectively in cultures (× 20); D: PSCs exhibiting dense lipid droplets (lipid droplets are indicated with black arrows) in the cytoplasm (× 40); E: Activated PSCs showing long cytoplasmic processes with no lipid droplets in the cytoplasm after 72 h in cultures (× 20); F: Passage 2 rat PSCs in culture, immunostained for α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA), a cytoskeletal marker for activated PSCs. Green striations indicate α-SMA and blue spots indicate nuclei, stained with DAPI (× 20).