Fig. 7.

Quantitative assessment of donor cell engraftment after MSC-dressing therapy. (a) After transplantation of 4 × 10⁶ male rat bone marrow-derived MSCs into the female rat heart with MI by either the dressing technique (DR group) or intramyocardial injection (IM group), retention/survival of donor MSCs was assessed using quantitative PCR for the male-specific Sry gene. Donor cell presence (Y-axis) shows the ratio of the number of existing donor cells to the number of total transplanted cells. n = 4-5; *p < 0.05 vs. IM group, Repeated measures ANOVA. (b) Percent loss of donor MSCs after MSC transplantation during the selected periods in the DR and IM groups was calculated from Fig. 7a data. Donor cell loss (Y-axis) means the ratio of the number of disappeared donor cells during the period to the number of existing donor cells at the beginning of the period. n = 4-5; *p < 0.05, Student's t-test.