Fig. 1.

Isolation and characterization of CD73-EGFP⁺ cells from BM.

(A) EGFP⁺ colonies containing EGFP⁻ cells of primary BM cultures displayed typical MSC-like morphology at day 5 in culture. Scale bars 100 μm, insets 10 μm. (B) EGFP⁺ and EGFP⁻ cell fractions were sorted by flow cytometry from passage 2 to 3 of a whole BM cell culture. (C) Sorted EGFP⁺ cells showed EGFP fluorescence at passage 5 in culture. Scale bars 10 μm. (D, E) Cultured EGFP⁺ cells preserved EGFP (D) and Nt5e (CD73) (E) expression at passage 6 in culture as assessed by realtime PCR. (F) Anti-CD73 staining revealed CD73 expression in EGFP⁺ cells. Scale bar 10 μm. n = 3, two-sided t-test, **: P < 0.01.