Figure 2
Histologic characterization of wound re-epithelialization. (a) Epidermal structures are preserved when using MSTCs to treat wounds. Representative Trichrome image of an MSTC-treated wound after 1 week. Epidermal segments appear to be migrating towards the wound surface, as highlighted by the arrows. Scale bar = 1 mm. (b) Representative H&E image of the center of an MSTC-treated wound 2 weeks after treatment, showing complete re-epithelialization. The blue box outlines an example region where the feature highlighted in (d) below can be found. Scale bar = 500 µm. (c) Representative H&E image of the center of control wounds at 2 weeks. Bracket highlights area without epithelium. The two blue boxes outline example regions where the features highlighted in (e) (right box) and (f). (left box) below can be found. Scale bar = 500 µm. (d) Representative image of the stratum corneum of MSTC-treated wounds, with the characteristic stratified, anuclear structure. Scale bar = 25 µm. (e) Representative image of the unepithelialized portion of control wounds. Scale bar = 25 µm. (f) H&E image showing parakeratosis (retention of nuclei in the stratum corneum) in epithelialized portions of control wounds. Scale bar = 25 µm. (g) Percentage epithelialization and parakeratosis in MSTC-treated (n = 6) and control wounds (n = 6) 2 weeks post wounding are shown in (g) and (h), respectively. **p \(\le \) 0.005, ****p \(\le \) 0.0001.
