Fig. 2.

Swine VSMC-engineered grafts maturation in a dynamic bioreactor. (A) Photograph of the cylindrical scaffold from the bioreactor. (B) H&E staining of cellularized grafts after conditioning in the bioreactor (bar = 50 μm). (C) Representative fluorescence microscopy images of viable cells (i, Calcein AM staining, green, n = 3) and dead cells (ii, EthD staining, red). Nuclei are stained blue by DAPI (iii). Merged staining (iv). (bar = 50 μm). (D) Representative fluorescence microscopy images of VSMC markers CNN1 (i), a-SMA (ii) and SMHC (iii). Controls for the secondary antibodies (iv). (bar = 50 μm). (E) Ultimate tensile strength (i) and Young's Modulus (ii) of acellular and cellularized grafts. Cells from three donors (n = 3) run in triplicates were tested in this study.