Figure 3.

Thickness of GP and articular cartilages. (A) Representative Safranin-O-fast green stained-sections (magnification, ×4). Solid black arrows indicate the GP. The yellow arrow indicates GP cartilage bars or islands. The blue arrow indicates metaphyseal bone. The long black arrow indicates GP and GP cartilage bars or islands. (B) GP thickness. Black bars indicate normalized or relative GP thicknesses. Grey bars indicate normalized total or relative total GP thicknesses. (C) Areas of metaphyseal bone matrices and total metaphyseal matrix (areas of metaphyseal bone matrices + areas of GP cartilage bars). (D) Thickness of the central most degenerated area of articular cartilage. *P<0.05 vs. untreated; ^P<0.05 vs. untreated and PC-E. PC, phosphocitrate; PC-E, PC-β ethyl ester; GP, growth plate.