Femke Mathot

Chapter 3 50 The differences between both cell-group ratios after 3 and 7 days of culture were statistically significant as well (p=0.009 and p=0.026). These results imply that chemical processing of nerve allografts does not generate a surface that decreases cell-viability. Interestingly, the demonstrated ratios suggest that the processed allograft stimulates the viability of undifferentiated MSCs, while this effect is not as obvious for differentiated MSCs. The absorbance ratios, and thus the viability ratios of the different cell cultures over time are shown in figure 2 . Figure 1. Differentiation of MSCs into Schwann-like cells. Immunocytochemical comparison between undifferentiated MSCs (a, d, g), differentiated MSCs (b, e, h) and Schwann cells (c, f, i). Cells are tested for the presence of Schwann cell marker S100 (a, b, c, green), glial cell marker GFAP (d, e, f, red) and neurotrophin Receptor p75 (g, h, i, green). Cell nuclei are DAPI-stained (blue). Cell adhesion After six hours of seeding, only 24.38% ( ± 6.34) of undifferentiated MSCs and 43.33% ( ± 3.02) of differentiated MSCs were attached to the processed nerve allografts. Subsequently, these percentages increased to 80.00% ( ± 1.73) (undifferentiated MSCs) and 94.54% ( ± 1.50) (differentiated MSCs) after 12 hours of dynamic seeding and changed to 82.00% ( ± 5.92) (undifferentiated MSCs) and 77.50% ( ± 6.67) (differentiated MSCs) after 24 hours. ‘Between