Figure 4.

Assessment of Equine iPSC Chondrogenic Differentiation

(A) Alcian blue staining for undifferentiated and chondrogenic microspheres. Indicated percentages refer to the Alcian blue-positive areas (arrows) across the depicted spheres.

(B) Quantitation of cell density and differentiation efficiency in parental cells and iPSCs, comparing undifferentiated (undiff) and differentiated (chondro) spheres (^∗p < 0.05, one-way ANOVA with Bonferroni comparison; ns, not significant).

(C) qRT-PCR with equine-specific COMP primers; data are depicted as fold change versus undiff (AU, arbitrary units; nd, not detectable; ^∗p < 0.05, one-way ANOVA with Bonferroni comparison; n = 3 independent experiments [3 technical replicates per experiment/cell type]).

(D) Oil Red staining on MAB- and MSC-iPSCs after adipogenic differentiation (red lipid vacuoles denote adipocyte-like cells). Differentiation rate is quantitated as percentage of adipocytes per field (^∗p < 0.05, Mann-Whitney U test, n = 3/cell type, n = 3 independent experiments per cell type).

Histograms represent average values; error bars indicate SD. Scale bars, 100 μm.