Fig. 2.

Histological appearance of the zone of cartilage integration. Collagen membranes were seeded with bovine nasal chondrocytes to create a chondrocyte/collagen-scaffold implant, as described under Materials and methods. The scaffold was placed between two discs of bovine nasal cartilage, as shown in Fig. 1A. All constructs and controls were cultured for 40 days and then processed for histology. Each panel shows a typical paraffin embedded section stained with Toluidine blue at 10× magnification. The images are compilations of serial lateral sections spanning the full width of the integration zone. (A) The chondrocyte/collagen-scaffold implant. (B) The membrane only control (collagen scaffold with no cells), (C) the cells only control (chondrocytes seeded onto the surface of each piece of cartilage) and (D) the negative control (no cells and no membrane).