Figure 4.
Ex vivo imaging confirms presence of transplanted cells within the myocardium. (A) Quantification of signals from ROIs over the thorax demonstrates significantly increased cell numbers in animals with I/R injury (white bars) compared to sham (gray bars) at days 2–6 following transplant (*P<0.05). Mean baseline Log10BLI (p/s/cm2/sr) of unoperated, uninjected mice was 3.3±2.1 (n=5 animals imaged at different time points). This was consistently 1–2 orders of magnitude lower than that of the highest signals attained in the animals receiving cells and I/R injury. (B) Ex vivo imaging of hearts two days following I/R injury with intravenous PBS (left), sham surgery with BMMCs (middle), or I/R injury with BMMCs (right) confirms homing of intravenously delivered BMMCs to the heart (white scale bars = 5 mm).
