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. 2013 Sep 11;8(9):e73494. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0073494

Figure 2. Differences in cavity formation between the BMSC-transplanted and the PBS-injected (control) rats.

Figure 2

The pictures show the representative horizontal sections of the spinal cord from rats of 1-w, 2-w and 4-w PI. HE-staining.

(A) Spinal cord sections of BMSC-transplanted (a-1) and PBS-injected (a-2) rats at 1-w PI. The cavity volume (a-3) relative to the whole spinal cord volume was 55.5 ± 5.3% (mean ± SEM) in the control, and 10.4 ± 3.5% in the BMSC-transplanted rats (* p < 0.05). R: rostral direction for all horizontal sections.

(B) Spinal cord sections of BMSC-transplanted (b-1) and PBS-injected (b-2) rats at 2-w PI. The cavity volume (b-3) relative to the whole spinal cord volume was 50.2 ± 5.5% in the control, and 13.5 ± 2.0% in the BMSC-transplanted rats (* p < 0.05).

b-4: Immunohistochemistry for macrophages from the spinal cord lesion of the section corresponding to the site shown in b-2. Macrophages are immunostained for OX42 on the cell surface. Scale: 100 µm.

(C) Spinal cord sections of BMSC-transplanted (c-1) and PBS-injected (c-2) rats at 4-w PI. The cavity volume (c-3) relative to the whole spinal cord volume was 70.5 ± 5.0 in the control, and 31.8 ± 3.7% in the BMSC-transplanted rats (* p < 0.05). Scale: 1 mm for all HE-stained sections.