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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2018 Jan 1.
Published in final edited form as: Semin Cell Dev Biol. 2016 Jul 7;61:140–149. doi: 10.1016/j.semcdb.2016.07.006

Figure 5.

Figure 5

Development of early preantral follicles under miniaturized biomimetic 3D culture in core-shell microcapsules showing the crucial role of mechanical heterogeneity in regulating the follicle development: (A) Typical images showing the growth of an early preantral follicle in the biomimetic microtissue with a 2% alginate shell and 0.5% collagen core, (B) a typical scanning electron microscopy (SEM) image showing the collagen fiber in the 0.5% collagen core, (C) elastic modulus of various shell and core materials used for fabricate the ovarian microtissue, (D) quantitative data of the percentage of development to the antral stage of early preantral follicles cultured under various conditions collected from references [47,48], and (E) production of estradiol by the growing follicles under the two best culture conditions. Alg: alginate; Col: collagen; O-Alg: oxidized alginate; N: number of early preantral follicles; and *: p < 0.05. The figure is reprinted and redrawn from reference [47] with permission from Elsevier (for panel A) and from reference [48] with permission from John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (for panels B, C, and E).