Fig. 9. Astroglia derived from NSC transplanted in DCH_T into the center of severe spinal cord injury (SCI) lesions can support the regrowth of host axons that transition from endogenous astroglia to graft-derived astroglia at SCI lesion borders and grow along graft-derived astroglia in SCI lesion core areas devoid of host neural cells.

(A_1-3) Oil-immersion images of the same field using different filter combinations show NFM-positive host axons that are in direct contact with both host tdT-positive astroglia and graft-derived GFP-positive astroglia in a transition zone where there is overlap of host and graft-derived astroglia at the border to the SCI lesion demarcated by the box labeled 9A in figure 7A₅. Arrowhead in 9A₂ indicates transition point of an axon from a host astroglia to a graft-derived astroglia. Arrows in the three-dimensional ortho-image 9A₃ indicate the direct contact of a host axon with the surface of a graft-derived astroglia. (B_1-3) Oil-immersion images of the same field using different filter combinations show NFM-positive host axons that are in direct contact with graft-derived GFP-positive astroglia in the center of an SCI lesion demarcated by the box labeled 9B in figure 7A₅. Arrowhead indicates a host axon that reverses its direction, which is regarded a hallmark of regenerating axons. Arrows indicate the direct contact of a host axon with the surface of a graft-derived astroglia. Scale bar = 20 μm for all images.