Figure 5.

Relative gene expression of tendon-related genes and growth factors in MSCs seeded on healthy and diseased tendon scaffolds. Asterisks indicate significant differences between groups with p < 0.05 (*) or p < 0.01 (**). Significant differences over time are indicated by paragraph symbols for healthy tendon scaffold cultures and by plus symbols for diseased tendon scaffold cultures (§ or + for p < 0.05; §§ or ++ for p < 0.01). Data were obtained using scaffolds from n = 5 different tendons per group. 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.