Differentiation of Bone Marrow Mesenchymal Stem Cells into Neural Lineage Cells Induced by bFGF-Chitosan Controlled Release System

Figure 4

BMSCs were induced to express nestin. (a) Nestin expression after 7 days of coculture in the conditioned medium. (b) Nestin expression after 7 days of coculture with chitosan that was added once at the beginning of the coculture. Yellow indicates the undegraded chitosan scaffold. (c) Nestin expression after 7 days of coculture with soluble bFGF (20 ng/ml) that was added once at the beginning of the coculture. (d) Nestin⁺ expression after 3 days of coculture with bFGF-chitosan that was added once at the beginning of the coculture. (e) Nestin⁺ expression after 7 days of coculture with bFGF-chitosan that was added once at the beginning of the coculture. The results suggest that, along with coculture time extension, the nestin expression percentage was substantially increased in the bFGF-chitosan group. (f) Quantitative analyses of nestin⁺ cell percentage in each group. Data represent the means ± SE. bFGF-chitosan-3d vs. the other three groups and bFGF-chitosan-7d vs. the other three groups P <0.001. Scale bar: 100 μm.

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