Figure 4.

The vessel sprouts and their distances from the center penetrating artery. (A) A representative single slice image of the vessel sprout (arrow) appeared in the periartery space at 7 days of hypoxia. The maximum width between the edges of green fluorescent protein (GFP)-expressing endothelial cells was considered to be the diameter of the vessel sprout (right). The shortest distance between the tip of the vessel sprout and the outer edges of the penetrating artery was also measured (right). The penetrating artery and other capillaries (nonsprouting) were continued to upper and lower slices. (B) The diameter and depth distribution of the vessel sprouts. A total of 45 sprouts were observed after 7 to 14 days of hypoxia (N=11 animals). No significant correlations (P>0.05) were found between the cortical depth where the sprout appeared over 0 to 500 μm from the surface and their diameters. (C) Cumulative frequency for the shortest distance between the center penetrating artery and the sprouting (closed circle) or nonsprouting (open circle) capillaries, observed in the periartery space. The sprouting capillaries were located significantly distant from the center penetrating artery (P<0.05) compared with the nonsprouting capillaries.