FIG. 2.
A comparison of the chondrogenic potential of FPSCs maintained in pellets or in agarose hydrogels (10 million cells/mL) for 21 days. (A) DNA content, GAG/DNA, and collagen/DNA. (B) Alcian blue staining, picrosirius red staining, and collagen II immunostaining of the pellets and hydrogels expanded at 20% O2. Scale bar, 500 μm. “*” indicates a significant difference between FPSCs expanded at either 20% or 5% O2, where all other culture conditions during differentiation were identical. “b” indicates a significant difference between pellets and hydrogels maintained in otherwise identical environmental conditions. Color images available online at www.liebertonline.com/tea