Fig. 7

Characterization of mCherry⁺ RCs for stem cell properties. a Gating scheme for flow cytometric analysis of GP cells isolated from 4-week-old male Apoe^mCherry/+ mice (n = 3 independent animals). Percentage is within DAPI^-Lin^-mCherry⁺ cells. Lin: hematopoietic and endothelial lineage cells (CD45⁺Tie2⁺Ter119⁺). b Lin^-CD73⁺mCherry⁺ cells were sorted and subjected to in vitro osteogenic/chondrogenic/adipogenic differentiation assays. The upper panels are controls cultured in non-differentiating media. Representative figures from 3 independent experiments are shown. c Colony forming unit (CFU) assay comparing the self-renewal capabilities between Lin^-CD73⁺mCherry^- and Lin^-CD73⁺mCherry⁺ cells. Data are presented as mean ± SD. n = 3 replicates of pooled cells from 2 independent mice. Student’s t-test