1 Research Article Cell Biology International 10.1002/cbin.11113 Insulin-like growth factor-I promotes hepatic differentiation of human adipose tissue- derived stem cells † Short running title: IGF-I enhances hASCs hepatic differentiation Zahra Shabani Azandaryani 1,2 , Nahid Davoodian *1,2 , Afshin Samiei 3,2 , Sahere Rouzbehan 2 1 Molecular Medicine Research Center, Hormozgan Health Institute, Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences, Bandar Abbas, Iran 2 Department of Clinical Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences, Bandar Abbas, Iran 3 Department of Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences, Bandar Abbas, Iran Correspondence to: Nahid Davoodian, Ph.D. Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences, Bandar Abbas, Iran Phone: +98-917 322 9106 Fax: +98-76-3366 8478 Nahid_Davoodian@yahoo.com Nahid.Davoodian@hums.ac.ir † This article has been accepted for publication and undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process, which may lead to differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as doi: [10.1002/cbin.11113] This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved Received: 3 September 2018; Revised: 20 January 2019; Accepted: 10 February 2019