Figure 7: Mkx-induced mesenchymal stem cells form tissue consisting of type I collagen.

(a,b) Strategy for testing the type I collagen synthesis ability of C3H10T1/2 cells induced by Venus (C3H10T1/2-V or Venus) and Venus-Mkx (C3H10T1/2-VM or Venus-Mkx) after subcutaneous transplantation. (c,e) Gross appearance of products 8 weeks after subcutaneous transplantation (c: C3H10T1/2-V; e: C3H10T1/2-VM). Scale bars, 1 mm. (d,f) IHC of these products (d: C3H10T1/2-V; f; C3H10T1/2-VM). Blue, Hoechst; green, anti-GFP; red, anti-Col1a1. Scale bars, 50 μm. (g,h) Images of transmission electron microscopy (g: C3H10T1/2-V; h: C3H10T1/2-VM). * The area of the collagen gel. Scale bars, 500 nm. (i) Histogram of the diameter of collagen fibrils from C3H10T1/2-V and C3H10T1/2-VM cells. Blue bar, C3H10T1/2-V; red bar, C3H10T1/2-VM. (j) The calculated mean of the diameter of 100 collagen fibrils from C3H10T1/2-V and C3H10T1/2-VM cells. The mean diameter of 100 collagen fibrils was calculated: for C3H10T1/2-V cells, mean diameter=46.99 nm (s.d.=7.409 nm); for C3H10T1/2-VM cells, mean diameter=147.32 nm (s.d.=54.54 nm). Error bars represent the s.d. **P<0.01. Statistical differences were assessed with Student’s t-test. GFP, green fluorescent protein.