Research Article

Use of Self-Assembling Peptides to Enhance Stem Cell Function for Therapeutic Angiogenesis

Figure 2

Fluorescent immunohistochemical staining of stem cell markers (a) CD105, (b) CD90, and (c) CD29 for MSCs, RADA, MSCs + RADA, and control (10x magnification). Injected MSCs previously tagged with GFP stained green in the presence of MSCs (second column for each time point). The different stem cell markers were stained for (third column for each time point) and showed the presence of stem cells, not only in the MSC and MSC + RADA group, but also in the RADA-alone group, suggesting the presence of stem cells probably from the recruitment of endogenous MSCs by RADA. The merged images showed a characteristic yellow color from double staining of GFP and stem cell markers (second and fourth row for the different stem cell markers at different time points), yet there was no presence of endogenously recruited MSCs in the combination group which would have shown a red stain only in the merged images (fourth rows).
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