Figure 5: Differential response of MVSCs and MSC-like cells to the treatment of vascular growth factors.

The undifferentiated MVSCs (cultured in DMEM with 10% FBS for 5 days) and MSC-like cells (cultured in DMEM with 10% FBS for 3 weeks) were treated with 10 ng ml⁻¹ bFGF, 10 ng ml⁻¹ PDGF-B or 10 ng ml⁻¹ TGF-β1 for 24 h. White bars indicate undifferentiated MVSCs, and black bars indicate MSC-like cells. (a) EdU staining was used to quantify the proliferating cells. (b–f) qPCR analysis was used to quantify the gene expression of Sox17 (b), Sox10 (c), aggrecan (d), SMA (e) and CNN1 (f). 18S ribosomal RNA was used to normalize the relative expression levels. Data were shown as average±s.d. (n=3). * indicates significant difference between growth factors-treated and untreated MVSCs using Holm's t-test (P<0.05). † indicates significant difference between growth factor-treated and untreated MSC-like cells using Holm's t-test (P<0.05). ‡ indicates significant difference between MVSCs and MSC-like cells in absence of growth factors using Student's t-test (P<0.05).