FIGURE 5.

Increased survival of transplanted mSCs engrafted into silk fibroin hydrogels enhances neuroprotective effects after stroke. (A) Representative images of Nissl-stained coronal brain sections performed 10 weeks after injection of PBS, mSCs alone or mSCs encapsulated in silk fibroin hydrogels (images showed from two different mice in each group). Note how the majority of the cortical territory was preserved in stroke mice co-injected with mSCs and silk fibroin gels. (B) Panel i shows the regional distribution of the cortical tissue loss (damaged tissue) in coronal sections along the rostrocaudal axis as measured from bregma. Panel ii shows the total cortical tissue loss. (C) Representative images at low (panel i) and high (panel ii) magnification of mSCs expressing the EGF protein (EGFP) implanted into the striatum of non-EGFP-expressing mice, 72 h and 4 weeks after the injection of mSCs or mCSs-SF. Every image in panel ii corresponds to sections examined from different mice. In the figure, nuclei were stained with Hoechst dye (pseudocolored blue). Panel iii shows the quantification of EGFP-positive cells at different time points after transplantation. The asterisks in (B, panel i) show significant differences between mice treated with PBS or mSCs-SF (blue asterisks) or between mSCS-SF animals compared with the other two mice groups analyzed (black asterisk) (two-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s test; ^∗p < 0.05). The asterisks in (B, panel ii) show significant differences between groups (one-way ANOVA test followed by Tukey’s test; ^∗p < 0.05). The asterisks in C (panel iii) denote statistically significant differences between groups at each time point analyzed (two-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s test; ^∗p < 0.05).