Figure 4

Tenocytes from Ink4a/Arf^−/− mice in low, intermediate, and high passage exhibit tenogenic characteristics comparable to tenocytes from wild-type (wt) mice in low passage. (a) Box & whiskers plots (mean indicated by the horizontal line and whiskers indicating min–max range) illustrating the qPCR data of tendon markers Col1, Col3, Col5, Scx, Tnmd and Tnc in wt cells and Ink4a/Arf^−/− cells from different passages (n = 3 different biological replicates). For mean normalized mRNA levels, s.d. and p-values see Table 1. (b) Representative histograms of flow cytometry analysis of CD29, CD105, CD90 and CD44 expression in wt (low passage) and Ink4a/Arf^−/− cells (in low, intermediate, and high passages) revealed similar levels of surface markers confirming their tenogenic phenotype (n = 3 different biological replicates).