Figure 4.
Morphological evaluation of telocytes in formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded tissue sections from control EDL muscles, EDL muscles damaged by ex vivo forced eccentric contraction (EC) and EDL muscles damaged by EC in the presence of bone marrow-mesenchymal stromal cell (MSC) conditioned medium (EC + MSC-CM). (a–d) Representative confocal immunofluorescence images of muscle tissue sections immunostained with antibodies against CD34 (red) and the pan-endothelial cell marker CD31 (green). Telocytes are identified as CD34+/CD31− stromal cells with distinctive moniliform cytoplasmic prolongations (telopodes), while vascular structures are CD31+. Higher magnification of the boxed area in (b) depicting a typical telocyte is shown in the inset. Images are representative of at least 3 sections from each of 4 control, 4 EC and 4 EC + MSC-CM muscles. Scale bars = 25 μm (a–d), 10 μm (inset in b).