Fig. 3.

Cultivation of nasal mucosal epithelial cells and manufactured cell sheet. (a) In explant culture, epithelial cells were observed to proliferate from the tissue fragments. (b) It was observed that the epithelial cells stably proliferated on the temperature-responsive culture dish while maintaining the cobblestone-like morphology even in the passage culture. (c) After 12 d of culture on a temperature-responsive culture dish, the cultured cells could be harvested as one continuous sheet by lowering the culture temperature. Scale bar = 5 mm. (d) The cell sheet to be transplanted was confirmed to be a layered structure consisting of epithelial cells. Scale bar = 25 μm.