Figure 4.

Incidence of granuloma formation in uPOC or cell/scaffold composites.

(A) The accumulation of CD68⁺ macrophage clusters (green) was most prominent in 4- and 10-week uPOC and POC/CD34⁺ HSPC grafts. (Figure 4A, columns I and II). The numbers of granulomas was greatly reduced in POC/MSC and POC/MSC + CD34⁺ HSPC grafts (Figure 4A, columns III and IV) and both time-points. U = urothelium; L = bladder lumen; white arrows depict granulomas. n = 10 images/animal. Blue = DAPI. Magnification, 100x. Scale bar, 200 µm.

(B) Frequency of granulomas in bladder tissue decreased with the addition of MSCs, but not CD34⁺ HSPCs, to grafts. At 4 weeks, the mean number of granulomas for MSC-seeded groups was <2; by 10 weeks further reduction resulted in instances of no detectable granulomas (POC/MSC range 0-2; POC/MSC + CD34⁺ HSPCs range 0-1).