Comparative Investigation of Human Amniotic Epithelial Cells and Mesenchymal Stem Cells for Application in Bone Tissue Engineering

Figure 2

hAECs show a confirmed though relative lower osteoblastic capacity in vitro. (a, b) Progressively increased cellular ALP and ARS staining after osteogenic induction were observed in all cell types. (c) Immunofluorescence labeling of Runx2 (FITC, green), OPN (Cy3, red), and Nucleus (DAPI, blue) in hAECs, hBMSCs, and hAFMSCs following the 10-day osteogenic induction exhibited a more intense fluorescence of OPN and clear nuclei-localization of RUNX2 (small images at the corner of the merged images indicated the merged images of control group). (d) Further semiquantification of ALP activity and extracellular mineralization showed the lowest cellular ALP activity and mineral producing efficiency in hAECs group while hAFMSCs exhibited the highest level of extracellular mineralization (c; : ).

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