Figure 3.

Construct thickness increased slightly in agarose supplemented hCOL and considerably in Matrigel^TM/rCOL constructs. (a–d) Images of cryo-sections from 3D hydrogel constructs in hCOL (a), hCOL/Agarose (b), Matrigel^TM/rCOL (c), Matrigel^TM/rCOL/Agarose (d). The white dashed lines define the limits of the hydrogel and SIS construct while the red solid line indicates the hydrogel/SIS border. The hydrogel construct is located on the upper side of the red line and contains HUVECs and hASCs visualized with DAPI staining (a–d). The up down arrows indicate the average construct thickness for each hydrogel setting with 90 µm for hCOL (a), 100 µm for hCOL/Agarose (b), 60 µm for Matrigel^TM/rCOL (c), and 118 µm for Matrigel^TM/rCOL/Agarose (d). (e) A calculation of construct thickness was done by imaging of three different cryosections for each hydrogel setting (one construct analyzed per setting). The cross-section of the whole construct was imaged (approximately 9 images per cryosection) and five random thickness measurements were taken per image. Hydrogel thickness is presented as mean ± standard deviation (SD). Scale bar: 200 µm.