Fig. 2.

Significant increase of dystrophin expression and decrease in cardiac muscle fibrosis at 90 days after systemic-intraosseous DEC transplant to themdxmice. a Representative immunofluorescence images presenting restoration of the dystrophin (green) in the cardiac muscles of the DEC (MB^wt/MB^mdx and MB^wt/MSC^mdx) injected mdx hosts compared to the vehicle injected mdx controls and wild type control (n > 2). Nuclei were counterstained with DAPI (blue); Magnification 120X, scale bar 5 μm (ZEISS 710 META, Oberkochen, Germany). b Quantification of dystrophin-positive muscle fibers for both DEC lines: MB^wt/MB^mdx (15.73% ± 5.70, p < 0.0001, n = 4) and MB^wt/MSC^mdx (5.22% ± 1.10, p = 0.0406, n = 2) in cardiac muscle at 90 days after intraosseous-systemic DEC transplant when compared to the vehicle injected controls (2.01% ± 1.36, n = 2)(mean ± SD); significance between MB^wt/MB^mdx and MB^wt/MSC^mdx (p < 0.0001). Dystrophin-positive fibers count was normalized to the total number of fibers counted within the region of interest (mean ± SD, p < 0.05, one-way ANOVA with post-hoc Tukey test). c Representative images of hematoxylin-eosin (H&E) stained cross-sections of cardiac muscle of mdx mice confirming decrease in cardiac muscle fibrosis in MB^wt/MB^mdx (n = 2) and MB^wt/MSC^mdx (n = 2) DEC injected mdx hosts compared to the vehicle injected, not-fused MB^wt + MB^mdx (n = 1) and not-fused MB^wt + MSC^mdx (n = 2) injected controls; Magnification 40X, scale bar 100 μm (left panel); magnification 60X, scale bar 50 μm (right panel)