Mechanical Stretch Promotes the Osteogenic Differentiation of Bone Mesenchymal Stem Cells Induced by Erythropoietin

Figure 1

Representative images of BMSCs before and after mechanical stretch. Before mechanical stretch, the obtained cells were fibroblast-like, spindle-shaped, and randomly oriented (a). After mechanical stretch, the BMSCs were still fibroblast-like and spindle-shaped but became much thinner compared to the nonstretch cells. The cells were oriented perpendicularly to the axis of the external strain (b). In addition, immunophenotypic characterization was analyzed by flow cytometry, indicating that the obtained cells were BMSCs (c). The arrow indicates direction of stretch field. Bar = 50 μm.

(a)

(b)

(c)