figure 3.

Influence of ecm density in lymphatic vessel morphology, cell coverage, growth, and F-actin stress fibers. a) schematic of the culture conditions and experiment timeline. b) brightfield images of a lymphatic vessel cultured in LD and HD collagen matrices on day 1. scale bar = 200 μm c) images of lymphatic endothelial cells nuclei cultured in LD and HD matrices at day 1(top left), day 3 (top right) and day 5 (bottom left) with f-actin in red and nuclei in blue (bottom right). the dashed outline indicates endothelial cell detachment. d) nuclei count of cells conforming the lymphatic vessels per area at days 1, 3 and 5. e) lymphatic endothelial cell coverage area for each lumen cultured in LD and HD collagen matrices on day 5. f) % Ki67 positive cells (proliferation) per lumen area in lymphatic vessels cultured in LD and HD matrices at days 1, 3 and 5. g) % f-actin stress fibers per lumen area for vessels cultured in LD and HD collagen matrices on day 5. bars represent average ± SEM, n at least 4 individual vessels. scale bars = 140 μm. *p ≤ 0.05, **p ≤ 0.01, ***p ≤ 0.001, ****p ≤ 0.0001.