The effects of human umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stem cells (hUC-MSCs) treatment on cleaved caspase-3, -8, and -9 expressions (assessed by western blots) in the kidney tissue of NOD-SCID mice treated with either folic acid or vehicle only (A) and examples of fluorescent immunohistochemistry staining for cleaved caspase-3, -8, and -9 in renal tubular cells of NOD-SCID mice treated with FA and subsequently either given or not given hUC-MSCs at day 3 (B).

<p>Folic acid injury increased the expression of the cleaved form of caspase-3 (19 KDa) and -9 (38 KDa), and subsequent treatment with hUC-MSCs decreased the expression of the cleaved forms of caspase-3 and -9. The sample size for each time frame per group was six mice and at least three independent experiments were performed. Abbreviations: NOD-SCID, nonobese diabetic-severe combined immunodeficiency disease; CON, control NOD-SCID mice; FA, NOD-SCID mice were treated with folic acid; FA+hUC-MSCs, NOD-SCID mice were treated with folic acid and then given hUC-MSCs 3 h later; CON+hUC-MSCs, NOD-SCID mice were given hUC-MSCs; MW, molecular weight; kDa, kilodalton.