Fig. 4.

Tissue engineered constructs with aligned astrocytes. (A) Astrocytes expressing green fluorescent protein (GFP) grown in plastic compressed collagen constructs survived and maintained alignment within the matrix. (B–D) Confocal micrographs of aligned astrocytic constructs in co-culture with DRG neurons. Neurites stained for β-tubulin III (red) could be seen extending along GFP⁺ astrocyte processes. This demonstrated that neurite outgrowth was guided by aligned astrocytes in these implantable constructs. Scale bars: 25 μm. Reproduced with permission from [65].