Fig. 1.

Harvesting of tissues, cell expansion and characterisation. First, tissue was harvested from fat (a), bone marrow (b) and cartilage (c). Then, enzymatic disaggregation was performed for fat and cartilage, and mononuclear cells were isolated from bone marrow and then plated in T-flasks. Finally, ASC, BM-MSC and dedifferentiated chondrocytes were expanded in vitro. Immunophenotype profile of MSC using antibodies that cross-reacted with ovine samples (d) and RT-PCR from cultures of expanded cells from cartilage compared to native cartilage tissue (e). Multipotentiality of MSC and progenitor cells expanded from cartilage tissue as determined in chondrogenesis (f), adipogenesis (g, i, respectively) and osteogenesis (h, j, k) assays. Col II type-II collagen. Scale bars = 200 μm