Femke Mathot

Chapter 6 100 Figure 2. The vascular surface area outcomes of autografts, allografts, allografts seeded with undifferentiated MSC and allografts seeded with differentiated MSCs. The unseeded allografts showed a significantly lower mean vascular surface percentage than allografts seeded with differentiated MSCs and normal nerves (both p<0.001). *** = p<0.001, Error bars = standard deviation of the mean. uMSC = undifferentiated Mesenchymal Stem Cells, dMSCs = differentiated Mesenchymal Stem Cells Figure 3. Conventional images of the vasculature of a normal nerve (A) autografts (B), allografts (C), allografts seeded with undifferentiated MSC (D) and allografts seeded with differentiated MSCs (E). The nerves were positioned from proximal (left) to distal (right). The ingrowth of vessels seem to occured from both nerve ends, but from proximal in particular. The structuring of the vessels was clearly less organized in our study groups compared to the control nerve. Autografts Allografts Allografts + uMSCs Allografts + dMSCs Normal nerves 0 10 20 30 40 50 Mean vessel % Vascular surface area ✱✱✱ ✱✱✱