Fig. 5
BD enhances CIM-induced chondrogenic differentiation in 3D micromass culture. The 3 × 105 cells were placed into a 15 ml conical tube, and centrifuged to yield micromass. Cells were treated with and without CIM in the absence or presence of BD (0, 0.1, 1, 10, 100, 500 μg/ml) for 14 days. a The cell pellet in each tube was cryosectioned and stained with Alcian blue. b The Alcian blue stained GAGs were quantified using Image J software. c The cryosection pellets were fixed and immunostained with type II collagen (Collagen II). The nuclei were counter stained with DAPI. The results are presented as mean ± SEM from four independent experiments. *, P < 0.05, **, P < 0.01, ***, P < 0.001 vs. control