Fig. 3.

Histological analysis of cartilage repair at 16 weeks post-surgery. A: Representative histological images of newly formed tissue in OCD region at week 16 post-surgery. Safranin O-fast green (S–F), toluidine blue (T–B) and hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining in the non-OA group showed enhanced cartilage and subchondral bone repair, compared to the OA group. There is a large subchondral cyst in the non-OA group and OA group. The arrows denote the margins of the defect. B: International Cartilage Repair Regeneration and Joint Preservation Society (ICRS) scoring; C: The modified O’Driscoll histological scoring; D: The sGAG optical density. Data are shown as mean ​± ​SD, N ​= ​4, Paired t-test were used to evaluate differences between OA and non-OA groups. ∗p ​< ​0.05.