Fig. 3.

Comparative analysis of the characteristics of rabbit chondrocyte sheets before and after vitrification. Comparison of the morphological appearance (a–c) of rabbit chondrocyte sheets and distribution of proteoglycan (d–f) and type II collagen (g–i) in cross-sections of the cell sheets. a: There was no visible crack in the cell sheet vitrified by the circulating vitrification bag method. The extracellular matrix of the vitrified cell sheet contained abundant proteoglycan (d) and type II collagen (g) with a dense and even distribution. These characteristics of the vitrified cell sheets were similar to those of the cell sheets vitrified by the envelope method (b, e, h) and non-vitrified controls (c, f, i). (Scale bar = 50 μm).