Figure 1.

Relative gene expression of tendon-related genes and growth factors in MSC aggregate cultures and healthy tendon scaffold cultures. Asterisks indicate significant differences between groups with p < 0.05 (*) or p < 0.01 (**). Significant differences over time are indicated by hashmarks for aggregate cultures and by paragraph symbols for healthy tendon scaffold cultures (p < 0.05). Data were obtained with MSCs from n = 6 donors. SCX: scleraxis; MKX: mohawk; TNC: tenascin-C; COL1A2: collagen I; COL3A1: collagen III; DCN: decorin; TGFB: transforming growth factor-β; CTGF: connective tissue growth factor.