Figure 1.

Morphological changes of sheep bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BM-MSCs) in different culture conditions. BM-MSCs were cultivated in an αMEM or osteogenic differentiation medium, both supplemented with or without BMP-2 and/or FGF-2 for 21 days. In response to both stimuli (FGF-2 and BMP-2), the cells exhibited different cellular morphology compared to the control culture conditions, i.e., αMEM or osteogenic differentiation medium without any additional cytokines (a,b). Cells treated with FGF-2 were smaller and grew more densely (c). FGF-2 and BMP-2 added to the complete αMEM medium showed an osteogenic differentiation of the cells (e), and when added to the osteogenic differentiation medium, they altered the size and density of calcium acceleration (d,f).