Figure 2.
Intervertebral disc structure. The annulus fibrosus is a hierarchical structure with many levels of complexity within and between annular layers in the native tissue. Successful tissue engineering of the annulus fibrosus requires improved understanding of the interactions between fibres and cells, and the interfaces between annular layers. Blue: DNA in cells; orange: collagen type I; green: collagen type VI. The immunohistology image was obtained in collaboration with Dr Casey Korecki and Dr Marc Levenston.