Fig. 4.

Maintenance and expansion of CFU of UCB CD34⁺ cells and MNC in the 2D or 3D culture system. 2 × 10⁴ UCB CD34⁺ cells or 1 × 10⁵ MNC per well were cultured in the 2D or 3D culture system for 2–5 weeks. Cultured cells were recovered for methylcellulose CFU assay. To normalize the multiple experiments, the content of CFUs at each time point were expressed by the fold of initial CFU of each sample, each bar in the graphs represents mean ± SD from three separate experiments performed in duplicate. (^) Significant difference between each time point and the initial (p < 0.05). (*) significant difference between 2D and 3D culture system (p < 0.05)