Figure 10. Myelination of regenerating axons within grafts.

(A) In the pilot sciatic nerve experiment, cross-sections from the middle of GFP-SC grafts showed profiles with typical SC morphology (green) surrounding axons labelled with PanNF (red). (B–D) In the main peroneal graft experiment, comparison of longitudinal sections immunostained with S100 (green) and MBP (red) showed that normal nerves (B) had less myelin than autografts (C) and more myelin than NT3 grafts (D). (E) Quantification of semi-thin sections revealed that the number of myelinated axons/mm² in normal nerves and SCs grafts was significantly lower (*) than in autografts and BDNF grafts, and the numbers in the latter two and in acellular grafts were significantly greater (**) than in CNTF and NT3 grafts. (F) The ratio of unmyelinated to myelinated axons in the BDNF group was significantly less than in the NT3 group. Values represent M ± SEM of n = 3; p<0.05. Further details on statistical analysis provided as Statistical Information S1. Scale bars: 10 µm in A; 100 µm for B–D.