Fig. 6

Autophagy-induced glycolysis activates HFSC and preserves their stemness. A HFSCs treated with control, Rapa or Rapa + si-Ldha were subjected to the EdU labeling assay (EdU-positive(red); Hoechst(blue)). B Quantification of the proportion of EdU-positive cells in control, Rapa-treated or Rapa + si-Ldha-treated group. C Colony formation assays further confirmed that Rapa increased the proliferation of HFSCs and si-Ldha impaired Rapa-induced proliferation. D Quantification of the number of colony (up) and enlarged colony (> 100 cells/colony, down). E, F Immunofluorescence staining with anti-K15 antibody or anti-K19 antibody of HFSCs treated with control, Rapa or Rapa + si-Ldha was performed on day 3 of culturing. G, H Quantification of K15 + cells or K19 + cells numbers in control, Rapa-treated or Rapa + si-Ldha group. The data represent the means ± S.E.M from at least three independent experiments. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001, ****P < 0.0001, determined by Student’s t-test, Rapa or Rapa + si-Ldha versus Control