Isolation of ALDH^high cells by FACS.

<p>a. TECs with high or low ALDH activity (ALDH^high and ALDH^low TECs, respectively) were isolated by FACS. b. Analysis of ALDH mRNA expression by real-time RT-PCR confirmed that the sorted ALDH^high/low TECs were highly pure (*p<0.01). c. Cell proliferation was measured every day for 3 days by MTS assays. The proliferation of ALDH^high TECs was significantly slower than that of ALDH^low TECs (*p<0.01). d. Relative expression of Sca-1, CD90, MDR1, and IL-6 to GAPDH in ALDH^high/low TECs was measured using real-time RT-PCR (*p<0.01). e. ALDH^high TECs showed spheroid morphological features with a smooth surface and high circularity at 5 days after seeding into microwells in the stemness spheroid assay. ALDH^high TECs formed spheres at a higher frequency than that of ALDH^low TECs. Scale bar: 30 µm.