Table 5.

Expression of vascular endothelial cell marker and inflammatory factors in EA, EA + BMSCs, BMSCs, and PBS (mean ± SD).

Inflammatory factor	Time points (weeks)	EA	EA + BMSCs	BMSCs	PBS	p < 0.05
CD31 positive area (%)	0	2.33 ± 0.03	2.26 ± 0.07	2.30 ± 0.07	2.37 ± 0.06	–
	1	0.88 ± 0.18	0.72 ± 0.04	0.27 ± 0.04	0.11 ± 0.08	bcde
	2	1.29 ± 0.20	1.07 ± 0.08	0.50 ± 0.06	0.35 ± 0.05	bcde
	3	1.53 ± 0.27	1.24 ± 0.06	0.76 ± 0.14	0.52 ± 0.26	bce
	4	1.76 ± 0.23	1.49 ± 0.04	1.23 ± 0.20	0.93 ± 0.19	bce
IL1α positive area (%)	0	1.54 ± 0.08	1.59 ± 0.05	1.64 ± 0.08	1.49 ± 0.36	–
	1	8.64 ± 0.35	7.85 ± 0.86	10.77 ± 1.32	14.51 ± 0.74	cdef
	2	6.42 ± 1.03	5.16 ± 0.89	8.79 ± 1.39	15.37 ± 1.25	cdef
	3	5.71 ± 0.39	4.86 ± 0.57	7.69 ± 0.22	15.19 ± 0.64	bcdef
	4	4.92 ± 0.14	1.66 ± 0.11	5.50 ± 0.93	10.48 ± 0.99	acdef
PPARγ positive area (%)	0	0.00 ± 0.00	0.00 ± 0.00	0.00 ± 0.00	0.00 ± 0.00	–
	1	14.50 ± 1.43	15.69 ± 1.24	12.51 ± 0.64	9.96 ± 1.35	ce
	2	13.14 ± 0.92	14.80 ± 1.27	9.86 ± 1.38	6.77 ± 0.30	bcdef
	3	8.45 ± 2.16	9.40 ± 1.43	7.30 ± 0.82	6.85 ± 0.38	–
	4	0.69 ± 0.11	0.27 ± 0.11	0.65 ± 0.37	0.00 ± 0.00	cf
IL10 positive area (%)	0	0.24 ± 0.01	0.23 ± 0.03	0.23 ± 0.02	0.24 ± 0.09	–
	1	1.31 ± 0.33	3.67 ± 0.75	1.17 ± 0.22	0.15 ± 0.05	ade
	2	5.25 ± 0.94	5.91 ± 1.09	3.65 ± 0.88	2.47 ± 0.30	ce
	3	2.95 ± 0.55	3.89 ± 0.56	1.81 ± 0.56	0.97 ± 0.31	cde
	4	0.50 ± 0.09	0.55 ± 0.33	0.33 ± 0.09	0.65 ± 0.31	–

EA, electroacupuncture; BMSCs, bone mesenchymal stem cells; PBS, phosphate-buffered saline; SD, standard deviation; p ≤ 0.05, post-hoc analysis with Bonferroni correction. p < 0.05 and statistically significant difference between groups: a, EA vs. EA + BMSCs; b, EA vs. BMSCs; c, EA vs. PBS; d, EA + BMSCs vs. BMSCs; e, EA + BMSCs vs. PBS; f, BMSCs vs. PBS.