FIGURE 5.

Decellularized apple for adipose tissue engineering. (A) Representative compression hysteresis cycle of apple-derived scaffolds and control samples. (B) Metabolic activity of 3T3-L1 preadipocytes cultured up to 14 days on apple scaffolds and TCPS plates. After 7 days of culture, cells were either induced toward adipogenic differentiation (i.e., AP_adipo and TCPS_adipo) or cultured in pre-adipocyte medium (i.e., AP_preadipo and TCPS_preadipo). n = 4 per time point, one-way ANOVA: ***p < 0.001, ****p < 0.0001 comparing the metabolic activity of the same sample at one time point to the previous time point. (C) Representative LIVE/DEAD staining of 3T3-L1 cells cultured on apple-derived scaffolds (scale bar: 100 μm). (D) Oil Red O staining of intracellular lipid droplets in (Di) differentiated and (Dii) non-differentiated 3T3-L1 cells cultured on apple-derived scaffolds. Differentiated cells are characterized by a round morphology and red-stained accumulated lipid droplets (scale bar: 250 μm; scale bar inset image: 50 μm).